Last Sunday, ten days after it was clear CV-19 had landed in Michigan, my wife and I agreed I should take a temporary medical leave from the grocery store I work at, deemed an essential service. After several private discussions with the man steering the ship, the option was put on the table. It was not an easy decision. In those first ten days many things were becoming clear. Every country who was already dealing with the virus had vastly underestimated its capabilities. We watched the video diaries of Italians telling themselves what they wished they'd knew ten days prior. We watched the evidence roll out describing how incredibly contagious this is. We watched our president downplay the virus's threat at every turn. I watched coworkers and the public alike resist the change needed to comply with the unraveling evidence. I watched my company continue to make the wrong decisions to protect its own, and conversely, because of this make the worker-body more dangerous to the public. Life, let alone business, could not continue as usual. Yet, with the exception of the most minor of changes, it was as usual. So I bowed out.
The thing I've been most perplexed by is the arc of people's reaction to the severity of this crisis. I've talked to people who downright scoff at the severity of the virus. I've talked with people who are concerned but not enough to change their routines. I've talked with people who are deeply concerned but also feel a sense of duty to put a smile on and trudge forward. I've talked with people who walk into their workplace having just sat in their car for fifteen minutes weeping with a sense of dread, yet still show up. And I've talked with people who see the evidence, as my wife and I do, and have also chosen to bow out. I feel sympathy for most of these people, but I resent some of them who continue to act impervious to the threat. This sort of disregard makes me feel they are also a threat. What I feel most is empathy for those who could not be with their father, mother, brother, sister, friend, or relative as they died alone in isolation; These who grieve from the window-view of a car during the funeral, unable to hold and weep with one another for fear they might also contract the virus and meet the same fate.
To be fair, I was not as concerned in the first few days as my wife was. I'm learning that she has always been someone who feels things, particularly the threat to her safety, in a deeper way than I do. I'm a tall and relatively strong man whose been raised with the privilege of patriarchy, I cannot process physical threat the same way as someone more vulnerable. But I'm trying. The same way I'm trying to process the threat to those most at risk of having their lives upended, or even ended, by the virus.
After we had our one-and-only kiddo eight years ago, some things changed for her. I've done my best to understand the bond between her and our beloved but continually fall short as I can only imagine the experience of growing the future within one's body. While I've been skeptical about many things and ways to be in this world, I cannot deny her claim she may be an Empath. Evidence of this was perhaps clearest the last time I suited up for work, disposable gloves and pocket-sanitizer in tow, and walked out the door, leaving her behind as she wept for the fact I may not only bring the threat home with me, but I may pass it along to others I would share space with that day. There are some on this spectrum of threat assessment who might smack their foreheads by this reaction, but they are not me, and they are not her. When together we made the call that I would not return to work a wave of relief washed over her. So we're home watching, reading, and listening to how the world is dealing with this, adhering to the advice of scientific authorities. We're mourning the non-action and what feel like too-little-too-late-changes of decision makers bearing the weight of keeping us safe. We're having discussions with those who occupy different space in the threat-assessment spectrum, hoping to move the needle a little toward her end, the end I needed nudging toward.
For us, the writing was on the wall 15 days ago as we read about Italian doctors making choices about who to give limited resources to and who not to give resources to. 15 days ago the writing was on the wall when the World Health Organization's Director, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said:
“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries climb even higher. WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock, and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.”15 days ago the writing was on the wall when President Trump claimed the opposite position of most health officials, saying in his Oval Office speech: “This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome as a nation and as a world.” 15 days later, we know better. It's still unclear if he knows any better as he pushes the rhetoric of going back to business-as-usual in a mere 16 days.
By no means am I able to claim what is right for you and yours. I am so far from an authority on anything in this world that I doubt even what I'm writing here. Bowing out works for our family thanks to the generosity of our family. Not everyone is as privileged as we are, I get that. However, I fear that soon too many will regret holding onto regular concerns that will reveal themselves as invalid in the face of suffering and death and that soon everyone will have to acknowledge the writing has been on the wall.
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