Pig in a Silk Purse

Sitting here wondering how to sell you a pig in a silk purse about all that Is going on in the world right now. I just don't know how. But I can tell you how this nightmare began for me and how I kept my sanity through it all.

I can't even say 2020 so I will just say, last year.

Last year, started out as always with me working countless hours of overtime, wondering when my sea of debt would end and when would I receive the next promotion or when would I ever get married again. I was on auto-pilot like most of us was just going through the motions of life until that ill fated day in March. March 16th to be exact. I was reading message after message at work about our agency's response to this "pandemic." Huh?? To keep everybody safe. Huh?? Sounds big is what I thought but that it would be all over in a few weeks. Not so fast because God had other plans. I was sent home to the confines of my home to work in such a hurried fashion that I didn't even have all of my materials to work which was startling looking at how important our functions are to the general public. It was weird how I hadn't known this by looking at the news off my Facebook feed on Instagram by now. I mean, I get all of the other news there. I felt betrayed, bamboozled, and mislead by the media, and our flailing and failing political leadership.

January of "that year", my beloved sister-in-law died of a brain aneurysm. Early March, my beloved nephew almost died of a brain aneurysm. By the end of March my beloved sister (the nephew with the aneurysm's mom) and 79 year-old mother caught COVID and spent 3 weeks in an area hospital whereby she almost died. Mom and sister were right next door to each other. My sister was eventually released but mom was struggling and the fever would not let up. I called everyday 3 times a day to speak with her and her nurses regarding her care for the morning evening and night to keep them on their toes about her.

I made it very clear she was a Christian wife of 60 years with 6 loving and very involved children who would come at this hospital with everything they had if something happened to her at the hands of any inattentive uncaring staff. My brother even spoke of breaking in to get her out which I thought was brilliant. I still had to eventually threaten to report certain hospital staff and her doctor with elder abuse to get her discharged on Sunday of the third week. My older sister and I to had to nurse her back to health from an acute COVID infection without catching it on our own. THIS IS the closest I have ever come to facing my very fleeting and weak mortality. Feeling powerless and constantly sick I felt it my duty to help my remaining siblings take care of mom. Meanwhile, our dad also became very ill with you know what?? COVID. This was the absolute pits and we prayed all we could at 6:15PM every evening so that we would not curse God like Job in the bible was instructed to do. We stayed the course. Weathered the pain through countless discussions over hospital wanting to send mom to nursing home. No, No, No. There are six of us, we can handle it. The gentle sponge baths given with love and care made us realize that we had traded places with our mom. The countless food stops and drop offs to dad so that he would know he was loved and cared for to. Then there was the disappointment at all the headlines and the inaction. The fear feeling like a free fall from a 50 foot drop or how a bungee jump from Mt Everest might feel or how a deep wave wipe out might feel. We were all on a roller coaster from hell; but with a silver lining.

Mom and dad did finally recover but we had to keep them away from each other until they did. Nephew and sister who has Multiple Sclerosis (his mom) fully recovered too which is so miraculous because so many had been saying that those people with preexisting conditions were doomed, but that clearly wasn't the case. At least not for us and I often wonder why. All i can say is thank God. Who else can share my story?