The pandemic through the eyes of a ...

November 2020

 This month, we asked out writers to write about the pandemic
through the eyes of a 10 and 75 year old.

COVID Vocabulary Lessons

McKenna Snow
Class of 2024

March 17, 2020 // Dear Diary:

"Quarantine" is a hard word to pronounce when I read it. It’s even harder for me to try to spell. I’d never heard of it until now, as I am told that today is "the last day of school." But, it is March. Something is not quite right about that to me. No more going to school? Why is summer beginning so soon? // Now I’m at home, and I’ve been handed a computer—the classroom site is called "Zoom." I can remember that. That’s a fun name. // (Initially, I was excited about the change. No more going to school!) // Wait a second, you want me to watch this screen all day? What about my friends? When do I get to see them? // I am told I might not see them for a few weeks.

March 22 // Well, if quarantine is only for a few weeks, I guess I can handle that. I am ten years old now, after all. I’m a big girl. This could be a lot of fun, actually. I’ll try to make the most of it. // On Zoom, I’m a little distracted by the digital panel of my classmates. I don’t really know what my teacher is talking about— are my friends’ kitchens as messy as mine? I was curious to see if any of them are having class in their kitchens like me. Mom caught me being distracted. She told me to pay attention. So, I tried to—and then I fell asleep.

April 17 // It’s been several weeks since I’ve started to do all my school through Zoom. I am antsy. I am bored. I am tired of looking at this screen. I want to leave my house! The word adults use to describe the situation now is "pandemic." What does "pandemic" mean, anyway? It sounds scientific. How many people are sick? Can I do anything about it? Mom tells me that my dad is doing something about it, and is helping people through it. Nurses like dad are "essential," I’m told. I’m proud of dad.

April 27 // It’s been more than a month since the quarantine started. I feel very lonely now. Dad spends most of his time at work. He’s "essential", so he has to be at the hospital longer than usual. He spends a lot of time sleeping when he is home. I miss when I got to see him more often. My only sibling is one younger brother, who sleeps a lot. He’s a baby, and doesn’t know we’re in a "lockdown". I am jealous of the girls in my class who have big sisters. I want someone to paint my nails with, someone to bake cookies with, someone to play dress-up with when I don’t have to do school. My friend Bailey showed me her beautiful new pink nails over Zoom before our class started—she said her older sister painted them with her this weekend. I miss when I could go to Bailey’s house and paint my nails with her.

April 30 // Mom says my creativity is getting stifled by this lockdown and my imagination should still get to grow. So, she got me a book, and now we’re reading Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I like the story so far, but most of all, I like just getting to read together.

May 5 // I got something in the mail today! My Science teacher made all her students homemade masks, and mailed them to us. I didn’t know she liked sewing, and I think it’s very kind of her to make them for us, but I’m also confused. Halloween is a long time away. Why are we supposed to dress like ninjas right now, wearing masks? Masks used to be only something we talked about when talking about ninjas and superheroes, and now I hear about them all the time. I don’t like only being able to see half of people’s faces when they wear them—I like to be able to see my mom’s smile when we go out in public.

May 19 // Why can’t I get on the bus to go see my friends yet? Why can’t I have them over for sleepovers anymore? When can I go to the mall with my mom again for our Mom-Daughter outings? I’m tired of hearing about "social distancing" and "national emergency" on the TV. I ask mom to turn off the news and instead play a board game with me. "Board game," I told her, "because I—AM—BORED." She finally turns the TV off, and plays with me. I am so relieved.

May 29 // It has been about three months of quarantine. Three months of Zoom. I don’t like that name anymore. I want to see my friends. Isn’t summertime supposed to be fun? I want to look forward to it—but some people are saying there will be nothing to do. Is it safe to see my friends again? While the answer stays no, I settle for reading Narnia with my mom, and playing board games. Mom encourages me to try reading more on my own when she’s busy with my little brother; she said reading will improve my vocabulary. Personally, I feel like COVID has added a lot of new words and terms to my vocabulary—it’s been like taking a whole class all by itself. // It is now the middle of the summer.

School might be opening up again in the fall—I hope so. All of my world feels like it’s been upside-down. At times my new world feels confusing, lonely, and boring. When I told this to my mom, she taught me a new word to think about: optimism. That is a long word for me to remember, but I definitely try to, just for mom. I like what it means. She wants me to be o-p-t-i-m-i-s-t-i-c about everything, even when I’m frustrated. She tells me to look on the bright side of things, and to be joyful, and hopeful. I like these words more than the ones COVID has introduced to me. I think I am going to put them at the top of my vocabulary list.

Read other articles by McKenna Snow

Letter from a Virginia Senior Home

Emmy Jansen
Class of 2023

It has been seven months since I have left this building. My son-in-law comes to pick up my mail every few weeks, but he doesn’t come past the front door. I’m usually asleep while he’s here so I haven’t spoken to him. No one comes to visit me; no one can.

When the weather is nice, we go outside. There is a path around the building that goes through the parking lot and the garden out back. My wheelchair usually gets stuck since the path isn’t paved. The girl at the front desk sits with me outside some days and we just watch the cars drive by. There are always lots of ambulances and police cars. Sometimes, they do stop here. It’s never a good visit.

The building was shut down in March when the rest of the state did. Social gatherings were limited, only medical trips were allowed, and tables were spaced apart in the dining room. At first, it was only supposed to be for a few weeks. Then it became a month. Then two months. It hasn’t stopped.

Every day is the same. First, I wake up and wheel downstairs for breakfast. On the days that she forgets, I ask the girl at the front desk to put CNN on for me in the library. Usually, I fall asleep and wake up to a nurse checking on me. Every couple of days, a man from outside comes in to look at my knee. It still hurts because it still has shrapnel in it. It keeps me up at night.

We found a new normal. The nurses wear masks but we don’t have to. I hate them. I can’t hear what they say. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I feel like we aren’t speaking the same language. The girl at the front desk stands in as a translator; for some reason, I can understand her even with the mask. This frustrates the nurses and they leave to help another resident. The girl just laughs with me and wheels me back to watch CNN before going to her desk.

We started doing social events again. I can look forward to movies and book club again, instead of sitting alone watching CNN. But it isn’t the same. My son-in-law and daughter wouldn’t visit me much, but other residents would have visitors. Kids would run up and down the hallways to hug their grandparents. There would be laughter. There would be reasons to laugh.

The rhythm became bearable. A lot of the residents were still angry about being stuck inside, but they slowly came to accept it. We would sip our tea, read our books, and talk about what headlines we saw in the newspaper. Richard liked to show me the comic section. Peggy would talk about what shows she would watch that night.

The building had been shut down and we were cut off from the rest of the world, but it was only as a precaution. Unlike other senior complexes, we had no traces of the virus. We considered ourselves lucky. The staff started talking about opening back up. Families could visit, but they had to sit on the outside of the screen porch while we sat inside. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. Things were looking up.

Mid-June, we got out first case. The case count kept climbing and within a week, we were stuck in our rooms. Staff would come in, dressed head to toe in blue fabric as protection. Whether it was protecting us or them, I’m not sure. It felt alien; they had plastic shields over their faces and goggles that made their eyes look small. The blue latex gloves made their hands puff up and look swollen. It was hard to recognize which nurse was checking on me since their faces were covered with masks.

But most of the day, I spent alone. Instead of watching CNN in the library, I was tucked into my room. Reading the newspaper was now something I did by myself, with no Peggy or Richard there to discuss it. The only time I saw people was when the meals were delivered or when I needed care, and even those interactions were distant. It was lonely. It wasn’t just my knee that kept me up at night anymore.

The girl at the front desk kept some sense of normalcy. Every day, she would deliver my mail to my room and wave at me from the doorway. Before the building got the virus, she would sit and watch CNN with me whenever she had a few minutes to spare. She was always busy working with the nurses and coordinating socially distanced visits for families. But she was young. Hearing her laugh made years melt away. It wasn’t anything specific she did, it was just the youth in the room that would calm everyone. We could wax poetic about life and what we’d learned, and she’d soak it all up. The other nurses were older and were tired of listening to our ramblings. But she had only started working with us in April and hadn’t grown weary yet.

Richard would tell her about his time in Vietnam, I would talk about my time in Korea. When it got close to the end of summer, we knew she would be leaving us. While the rest of us were stuck inside, the girl had places to be. A full life ahead of her. A college degree to complete. A family to start. To say I was happy for her was an understatement; but I was also incredibly jealous. If I had the chance to start over, what would I change? Probably not much. Maybe some small choice I made back in Korea set this entire pandemic in motion. Maybe if I had moved to Alaska like I had always talked about, I wouldn’t have suffered in quarantine alone. Maybe there is nothing I can do to change things, and no one had the power to shift the course of this century. Maybe if we could change it, we wouldn’t. It might not be worth it. I would at least take the shrapnel out of my knee.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen

You do the best you can

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

It has been seven months since I have held my niece’s hands. She used to be able to come visit me every weekday. Seven months since she stepped into my room, hugged me and gave me a kiss. Now, I wonder when she is going to be able to make the 15-minute trip from her family’s home to my room.

At first, I was struck by the break in regularity. The hands, the steps, the hugs and kisses. One day, all of this just stopped. For years, this all seemed so ordinary. All your life, you hear about people doing extraordinary things. I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything extraordinary, but it sure does hurt when even the ordinary is ripped from you.

These visits stopped for everyone else who lived in the rooms next to and across from me. I wasn’t able to talk with them about it. Everyone has been going through the same thing, but we hardly are able to acknowledge it with each other.

I should probably stop talking about myself. All considered, we’re getting along just fine here. This is probably very difficult for my family back home, those people who are so close and so far from me. I think they like coming in to see me. The ordinary was ripped from them, too.

I’ve found that this has helped me over the years. If I’m able to think about what other people are going through, it makes what I’m going through less serious. I spend a lot of my time praying that all is well with my nieces and their families, my sister and her friends. I haven’t heard anything bad going on. It seems like this is where God wants me now. He wants me praying for everyone and resting. I’ve worked a lot over my life. I’m getting a lot of rest now, that’s for sure.

I have been able, though, to talk with my family over video calls. One of the nurses comes in and puts the screen in front of me and my niece appears, then my other niece, then my sister and then my great-nephew. All one after the other. I haven’t been able to see them all together in person for years.

This really is a tough way to live. All sorts of things are happening with my family, but I only get to be told about them and hope and pray that all works out for the best. Children are being born, students graduating from college and my old friends are all either dying or have been dead for a while.

There is something really troubling about all this fast change. When I was growing up, no one walked around with masks. No one had to think about whether someone she was meeting wanted to shake her hand. No one stayed six feet apart from someone at the water cooler. Everyone keeps telling me that we need to keep everyone safe. I’m trying to remember whether we even used that word when I was growing up.

All this fast change doesn’t seem good, though. You would think that the people who are willing to accept this change would at least listen to us old people who have been through a thing or two. It seems like all this change in the way people act, talk and dress came so fast without even consulting the people they are trying to protect. Sometimes, I just wish that my niece could come inside and say hello. She would tell me about her day, what she’s worried about, what she’s happy about. We’d talk about the same things we talked about the day before, but that’s ok. What else do I have to talk about at this age, anyway? Again, a lot of what I do at this point is rest, anyway. I don’t to think of brand-new things to talk about.

I hope that the young people are still able to live their lives. I don’t think I would have been able to deal with all this stuff at their age. Back then, we were playing outside and walking all over the city and not thinking at all about health or safety. Some may have died in the family, but that’s just what happens. Someone dies and everyone just keeps on doing the best they can. That’s all you really can do, right?

For years, probably decades, I have been saying that "things are all different, yet." That has never been truer than now. For all the time I have been saying that, there has always been someone right there next to me to say, "it’s true, Katie. It was different when we were growing up." Now, I don’t even have that. There’s no one sitting next to me to agree with me. That might be the worst part of all this.

We don’t need to finish on a sour note, though. There’s all kind of good that we can be looking at. People are still laughing and crying, saying hello and saying goodbye, working all day and sleeping all night. A lot of what we are used to has continued. It seems like there are some people who want us to think that everything has changed permanently and will never come back to normal. When people live in the normal, they want something exciting. When they live in the exciting, they want to go back to normal. I’ve seen this throughout my life and have gotten tired of seeing all the stunningly green grass on the other side and the dead weeds on my side of the yard. There’s usually nothing all that bad about your side of the yard and everyone else’s yard has its own problems. I know we’re going to get through this, and I’ll keep doing the best I can. Keep praying, hoping and not worrying and everything will work out just fine.

Read other articles by Harry Scherer

Life goes on

Angela Guiao
Class of 2021

When I woke up this morning, Mom told me I didn’t have to get ready for school. Isn’t that cool? She doesn’t usually let me stay home on a school day but maybe today is a special day. I think today is March-something, but I don’t remember if this is Mom’s birthday month. Oh well. Maybe she’ll let me play videogames.

"Jacob! Theo! Breakfast is ready!" Mom calls from downstairs.

I love the smell of bacon in the morning. It probably is her birthday. She only cooks breakfast on the weekends, usually when Aunt Lisa or Uncle Max comes to visit. I better get up. Ugh. I need to use the bathroom.

"In here!" my older brother Theo snaps from the other side of the bathroom door.

"I gotta pee!" I squeal.

"Sucks for you, loser. Use the bathroom downstairs."

I hate Theo. He got meaner when he turned 13. Mom said it’s because he’s now a teenager, and he’s going through a rebellious phase. I think he’s just a jerk. In three years, when I turn thirteen, I won’t be as terrible as him.

I quickly use the bathroom downstairs and rush to the dining table. If Theo gets to the table first, he’ll definitely eat all the bacon.

"Eat up, honey," Mom says as she pours me a glass of orange juice.

"Is it your birthday today?" I ask between mouthfuls of bacon and eggs.

She laughs, "No honey, it’s not my birthday. Why do you ask?"

I chew quickly so that I can swallow my food and drink a few gulps of juice, "Well then, why is there no school today? Today’s not a holiday, right?"

"It’s because of the pandemic, stupid," Theo snarls as he whizzes into the dining room. In one fluid motion he grabs the rest of the bacon and drinks the rest of my juice.

"Mom!" I scream.

"Theo, get your own juice," Mom sighs while turning around to grab another glass, "but Theo is correct, honey. It’s because of the pandemic."

"Pandemic?" I repeat slowly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before.

Theo laughs, plopping down in his seat, "You don’t know what a pandemic is, huh dummy?"

"I do!" I retort, "I just— I need—"

"You don’t know what a pandemic is," he snickered, grabbing the new glass of juice Mom set on the table and finishing it in three large gulps.

"Theo!" Mom exclaimed, grabbing the empty glass from him. She gave it a quick rinse and filled it up again, this time placing it down directly in front of me.

"A pandemic, honey, is when there is a large outbreak of a certain disease or virus. In this case, there is a spread of the coronavirus."

"The coronavirus?" I said, "What is the coronavirus?"

"It’s like the flu, dummy," said Theo, now chomping on some pancakes. I look at him in disgust. I don’t like pancakes.

"It is," Mom says, stacking the now-empty plates, "but I hear it’s worse than the flu. This is because we don’t have a vaccine. It looks like school will be canceled for the rest of the year."

"The rest of the year!" I shriek, "Why can’t we go to school?"

Theo shoots across the table and grabs my glass of juice again. After gulping it down, he says, "Because the coronavirus travels through your spit, dumdum. You can catch it just by being near someone. We can’t go to school. In fact, we can’t go anywhere because we don’t know who has it. And if we get it, we don’t know if we’ll survive it," he smiles evilly at me.

"Ouch!" he squeals as Mom suddenly whacks a dishtowel against the back of his head.

"This is nothing to joke about, Theo. There are plenty of people who are currently suffering from the coronavirus right now, and we don’t really understand just how serious it can get."

"Sorry," Theo mumbles, rubbing the back of his head.

"What are we gonna do?" I ask, "If we have to stay at home, what are we gonna do?"

"Well for now, just relax," Mom says, "Enjoy your time at home. We all need a little break. We just have to wait and see what happens."

She finishes stacking all the plates, "Theo, come help me wash the dishes," she calls as she heads into the kitchen.

Theo groans before sulking after her.

I rush upstairs to my room. After shutting the door, I open my window and crawl onto the roof of our garage. There is a small spot where the roof lays somewhat flat and makes it perfect for sitting.

The spot has the perfect view of the street we live on, and I can even see most of my neighbors’ houses.

The house across the street from us belongs to Mr. Jameson. He’s really old, and I think he and his wife are retired. I bet they stay home day-after-day. I wonder what they do so that they don’t get bored.

I can’t imagine staying home every day and not going to school. What about all my friends? Nicholas was supposed to trade me his Bryce Harper baseball card on Friday. Now, I don’t even know when I’m even going to see him again.

I sigh.

"What are you frowning about?" a voice calls over.

I look down and I see Mr. Jameson walking on the sidewalk, his cane in one hand and pointing at me with the other.

"Oh nothing, "I call back, "School’s canceled. I don’t know what to do anymore."

Mr. Jameson chuckles. He has one of those deep, slow laughs that you’d imagine a mafia boss to have.

"You’re going to adjust," he answered as he made his way to the crosswalk, "Things are going to change, and they’ll continue to change even until you get as old as I am. And all you do is adjust. Keep living. Find the good. Adjust."

He gave me a small smile before he headed across the street.

He’s right. The coronavirus sucks, and a lot of things are going change.

But no matter what, life goes on.

Read other articles by Angela Guiao

Read Past Editions of Four Years at the Mount