Death
The COVID-19 pandemic, like for many, had been one of the worst times of my life — especially when my parents caught the virus at the same time.
When they tested positive (a nurse came to our home to administer the test), we soon got a surprise visit from three volunteers who said my parents had to be taken away to a health facility specifically for COVID-19 patients. It all happened so fast, my mind wasn’t able to process it well, I found myself randomly crying at different times of the day, and the worst part was I thought my parents had been kidnapped. I mean I didn’t even see the car they rode on (I wasn’t allowed to step out of the house because, even though I tested negative, I had been exposed to the virus). How could I let this happen? I was the most careful girl in the world! By evening, I was worrying about where to get a ton of money and how and when the “kidnapper” was going to get in touch with me. At the time, I really thought I was going crazy.
I also thought of death. Three months earlier, two of my grandparents died from the virus at the same time at the hospital. I for sure thought my parents had the same fate. As an only child, I couldn’t bear to live a life without the only two immediate family members I have.
It’s one thing to live alone by choice, it’s another to do so because your entire family has been taken away from you. (In retrospect, I now understand it was for everybody’s safety, especially my parents’, and I was overreacting. But to be fair, I was overwhelmed, and so were my parents, I’m sure.) While I normally enjoy being alone, during that time I couldn’t deal with it. It was eerily quiet at home. Music didn’t help; I wanted to hear people talking. So I turned to podcasts (which I used to dislike — but not anymore!), specifically You Can Sit with Us by the Try Wives. I chose to listen to them because it felt like they were having a normal friendly conversation that I was a part of. I’m not kidding when I say they saved me from my mental breakdown (I hope I used the term correctly).
But aside from all that, I’m just so grateful for all the help we received, especially from neighbors — neighbors who provided me with lunch and dinner, who offered to buy me groceries, who told me to leave my trash outside the door so they could throw it for me, who brought groceries to my parents. I’m also grateful for friends who offered (medical and nonmedical) support, said kind and encouraging words and prayed for our situation. I’m so grateful for being surrounded by kind and helpful people, and I’ve learned to take the time to offer the same form of support to others who need it as well.
Soon my parents came back home (they weren’t kidnapped, thank God!), and I was allowed to step out of the house, ready to move forward with a new perspective.
One-word prompt: Death
