Living with a Disability During COVID-19

I love words. I am a logophile- "a lover of words." When this pandemic happened, no one knew what to do. Live like it was a normal day. But the “normal” day turned into wearing a mask to cover your nose and mouth, gloves to cover your hands when you went out. Animals were immune to it, or so we thought. But the key to never getting this deadly virus was keeping yourself clean, shower everyday, wash your hands and brush your teeth.

I read and found strangely unique words, giggling to myself, how they felt in my mouth when I spoke them.

I stopped brushing my teeth every day and showering was I challenging the virus? Was living in my safe world of words, making me invincible? Like I was wear the armor of words?

Then, animals contracted the coronavirus, first at a zoo, the zookeeper gave it to the unsuspecting animal. Older people died, no one cared, the government said that the old people should sacrifice themselves for the young generation. That included people who do not have strong immune systems and disabled people.

It had gone worldwide, countries had total lockdown; no one could fly in or out. Though some countries said it was a complete hoax and did nothing, let people wander freely not wearing masks and continuing to gather freely with no care of who came close to

them. They went to beaches, like it was a right of passage for college kids on spring break, they said they didn’t care if they got sick, they had been planning this for three months they wanted to go and party at the beach.

Now countries had to make a call of how old was old enough to die, college dorms were now turned into hospital rooms, Navy Ships were anchored in bays near big cities. Schools; K-12 and colleges were permanently closed, and people did not know when they would be able to return. Stores for clothing, shoes, and hobbies were closed too. No vaccine was created because we didn’t know what we were dealing with. The President of America had stopped sending medical supplies to hospitals, well before it had even been a month. More people were getting sick and dying and he was doing nothing to stop it.

It soon had morphed, into 40 new strains of COVID-19. No one was safe, it started affecting children, teenagers, and adults, not just old people. But, we are still no sooner in finding a cure.

I often thought this is the end of the world. But the ironic joke of it is I always thought the world would end with technology and climate change, not a virus. I guess in a way climate change did end the world, the faster the ice glaciers melted, the quicker the ancient virus hidden inside of them was released on the world. The technology was actually a savior to us, that is how we stayed connected, how we survived.

People who could not deal with their demons by staying at home and thinking of what they have done in there life. And, the protestors who carried guns and held signs that said COVID-19 IS A HOAX, got sick and died of the very thing they were protesting. So,

many of them now wore masks to not get infected but they still protested it. But, they were actually protesting not getting to go out and visiting businesses.

Then the word changed, by one senseless act of violence, we came together, we united, we stood up for each other.