Corona Can't Kill a Soul

“I know I’m somewhat biased,” Janice said a couple months ago at her nephew Ian’s wedding. “But, they are all so smart. And handsome.”

“And pretty,” I added, tipping my head toward Jenna. 

Janice smiled. “Well, that goes without saying.”  

I laughed. No one but an aunt could get away with that kind of somewhat biased remark without it being met by an eye roll, or worse.

Janice was the quintessential aunt. She had more nieces and nephews than anyone I’ve ever known. Though only seven of them were true blood relatives, half the town of Teaneck had been graced by her goodness and love. So much so, that dozens of young and old took to calling her Aunt Janice. 

Aunt Janice was a huge part of my kids’ lives. For most of their childhood, Janice lived with her brother, Larry, his wife, Claire, who was my best friend and co-dependent co-parent, and their four boys, Ian, Zack, Harrison, and Noah. The Preschels lived within screaming distance from our house and my kids and I spent an inordinate amount of time up on Prince Street.

Aunt Janice was always there. She was there for every single first-day-of-school photo opp. She was there when the kids piled off the bus in the afternoon. She was there for homework help, lifeguarding in the backyard pool, and for getting the boys to Hebrew school when no parental bribes worked. Aunt Janice cheered through countless baseball games, wrestling matches, swim meets, volleyball games, and football games. She was there in the rain. She was there in the heat. She was simply always there. 

To Aunt Janice, no swing-and-miss, no not-so-great report card grade, no fight with a friend was ever one of her nieces' or nephews' fault. There were always extenuating circumstances; a bad call, a late-night belly ache, a misinterpretation. And, that went for all of the kids she loved, not just the ones who lived inside her house.

Aunt Janice loved fiercely. I say fiercely because as kind as she was, if anyone said anything the least bit disparaging about one of her, kids – yours, mine, and ours – she would bite your head off. I know. I was bitten many times.

Aunt Janice always protected the underdog. And, for a long time, that underdog was her nephew, Noah. Noah had the ill fortune of being the youngest of Claire’s and my collective seven kids. He was still a baby when the others were toddlers. He was still a toddler when the others were little kids. He was still a little kid when the others were adolescenting and he was still an adolescent when the others were teenagers. While our kids often delighted in making Noah the odd man out, Aunt Janice swooped in. She took him under her wing and gave him extra-special attention, showering him with gifts and games and special outings. And, for some reason, it worked. Noah turned out to be perhaps the most beloved of all, despite being spoiled by his Aunt Janice. Or, more likely, because of it. 

When we’d go on group outings; to the Liberty Science Center, on the Yankees behind-the-scenes tour, to Geronimo’s after a game, Aunt Janice would always be responsible for the ones we were tired of. The wanderers, the weirdos, the whiners.

And, once her nephew, Eric, started working for the Nets, a whole new opportunity opened up for Aunt Janice. Now she was getting tickets and taking carloads full of kids to games, pumping them up with late-night sodas and snacks, because really, what’s a game without all the fixings? 

Aunt Janice was a pillar in our community. She was president of the Rotary Club, not once, not twice, but three times. She was active at her Temple. She was founding director of Teaneck’s Helping Hands Food Pantry. She was kind and giving and witty and wise. Oh, so wise.

In high school, the kids all had to put in a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate. Between playing multiple sports, and monumental socializing, those hours were just about impossible to complete. 

Aunt Janice employed our kids to help out at “her” food pantry with the promise of extra hours added to their time sheets. Word got out and dozens of surrogate nieces and nephews were suddenly interested in feeding the needy. But, Janice had an ulterior motive. Knowing that it’s impossible to help others without helping yourself, she knew she wasn’t really cheating the system with all those inflated timesheets. But rather, she was creating a whole new generation of do-gooders. 

Aunt Janice stood with unabashed pride at all six of her nephew’s bar mitzvahs, as well as at her niece’s bat mitzvah. She straightened bow ties for proms and ironed shirts for awards dinners. Aunt Janice loved to iron. She went to every graduation from Jelly Bean Nursery School’s moving up ceremony through college commencements. And, she was often present at off-year ceremonies to see an unrelated child celebrate, especially if she knew that child didn't have a huge following like hers did. 

“Who woulda thunk?” I said to Aunt Janice at Ian and Kaori's wedding back in October. The two of us surveyed the room, taking in all the friends and family members who we had spent a lifetime worrying about. We silently targeted the ones who had traveled and transformed, battled and believed, stumbled and succeeded, leapt and laughed.  

“We did good, didn’t we?” Janice said, uncharacteristically blinking back tears.

No, Janice. You. You did good. 

Janice Preschel, sister, sister-in-law, friend, and ultimate aunt, died on March 30, 2020 at age 60, from complications of COVID-19. To honor her memory, the family asks that we all take this deadly virus seriously and continue washing our hands, social distancing, doing good deeds, and helping others. Because, as Aunt Janice would say, it's just the right thing to do.

The Best of the Best Doing Their Best

Despite my many health-related incarcerations, I have only been sick, really sick, once. I was hospitalized for nearly three weeks with pancreatitis and spent seven of those days in ICU. Though it was nearly twenty years ago, it's still as vivid in my mind as yesterday's distress after binge-eating an entire bag of chocolate Easter eggs.  

I remember waking up in the middle of the night alone in a room, tubes dangling, machines whirling, TV flickering. On the screen was a bejeweled woman in a turban, a medium as it were, calling out to the spirit world as she communicated with the dead. 

After getting through that night without passing over to the other side, I remember the unsettling sense of not being able to see my children who, at the time, were nine, seven, and five years-old. I’d been having weird and fierce stomach pains for a couple of weeks and had scheduled an endoscopy to figure out what was going on. The youngest was not yet in school, so I dropped him at Claire’s house, promising I’d be home in an hour. As it ended up, I was sent by ambulance from the doctor’s office and neither he, nor my other two kids, saw me again for far too long. I didn’t necessarily miss being a short-order cook, laundress, peace-keeper, taxi driver, sports spectator, and anchor. But, my heart hurt as I felt their fear, confusion, anger, and angst. 

We all forget pain; if we didn’t, none of us would have siblings. But, certain memories simply don’t fade. Like when the twilight drugs didn’t work during my hip replacement and I laid awake through the entire surgery.

“I feel you sawing my bone. Now you’re tugging the old hip out. Now you’re stapling up the incision,” I warned the surgeon who thought it was just Betsy being Betsy, assuming I’d forget it all when it was over. Which, of course, is what should happen, if the anesthesia did what it was supposed to do. I didn’t feel any pain – it was like Novocain during a root canal. Painless, yet unpleasant. But, not scary.

Scary was being alone in the hospital with pancreatitis. Though, my ever-loving spouse visited regularly, he couldn’t spend endless hours with me. While our kids loved nothing more than hanging out with Claire and her four sons, they also needed that sense of normalcy, that old iron-fist that only a father can foster. But, that meant that I was often alone, trying to decipher the doctors’ words and deeds through my sick-hazed brain.   

One of the side effects of my pancreatitis was an abnormal amount of fluid in my lungs. I couldn’t swing my legs to the side of the bed without exhaustion. Nor I could I take ten consecutive steps without stopping to rest. Every few days a nurse would come into the room with what appeared to be a three-foot needle and stuck it in my chest, filling liter-sized jugs with beer-colored liquid. 

“Am I going to die?” I asked one of the doctors.

He responded with a firm hand on my forearm. The forearm that was finally free of the IV tubes now that they had created a port in my neck. 

Not, “Absolutely not.” Not, “Don’t be silly.” Not, “We’re not going to let that happen.” 

Just a firm hand, a grimace, and a report back to the spouse that his bride knew it was a distinct possibility. 

The spouse responded by holding my hand and telling me definitively that I was not going to die. And, that reassurance made all the difference. 

Meanwhile, back in real life, I’m often glib and snarky and dismissive when people moan and groan over their illnesses. I’m a flu shot resistor, a suck-it up mother, a this-could-be-so-much-worse kind of friend. You know, the kind of person you love to hate when you’re not feeling well. And, sometimes when you're feeling just fine. 

But, COVID-19 has removed a layer of my snark. I’m not worried about me. I can deal with whatever comes my way. But, what breaks my heart are the ever-increasing stories of people, some of whom I know, who are alone in the hospital. Whose spouses can’t visit. Whose kids can’t visit. I ache for those who have died alone, whose final farewell with loved ones was through FaceTime. Or whose last face-to-face was with a nurse with a kind smile concealed behind a surgical mask. For the new widow who is quarantined and can’t even see her adult children in her grief. For those who are wondering what that firm touch on the wrist means. If, indeed, a firm touch is even allowed through protective gear.

I continue to read my spouse's news stories. The ones about refrigerated trucks serving as mobile morgues. The ones about choosing who gets a ventilator and who dies. The ones about overtaxed health care workers. I feel horrible for the high school and college seniors, the missed proms, the postponed weddings, the canceled (gulp) cruises. 

And, I just can't stop thinking about the absurdity of it all. That this is the year 2020 and we can't do better.

In the meantime, we're doing the best we can. We're suffering through quarantines. Covering our coughs and cringing over rogue sneezes. We're washing the skin off our hands and proselytizing about what is and isn't the right thing to do. We're sanitizing and social distancing, zooming with friends and attending church on Facebook feeds. All of us waiting and wondering, hoping and praying that this too shall pass.

Then, there are those good, selfless people out there who don't have the luxury of complaining about limited grocery store hours, shortages of toilet paper, parks being closed, salons being shuttered, or mandates to work from home.  

You know the ones. The ones who really have a right to complain. The ones who are out and about doing what needs to be done. The ones we are applauding from our porches and balconies in community-wide thanks.

But, somehow saying thank you seems insufficiently superfluous right about now.

To all the fearless who are getting us through this, I don't know what else to do but to wish you Godspeed.

And to pray that when all this is over, your lives will be ever blessed with all the good the world has to give.

You are the best of the best.

Waiting for the Axe to Fall

“I feel like we're all living in that 1-5 pm window, waiting for the service person to come,” my oldest and wisest sister, Susan, said as we swapped COVID-19 stories. 

She, along with most of my family members live in Pennsylvania’s epicenter of Montgomery County and are as locked down as we are here in New Jersey's epicenter. All, including my not-so-young mother, are symptomless and somewhat sane. So far. 

Many of my friends in Teaneck have not been as lucky. 

What a perfect analogy, I thought after hanging up with her and heading to the basement to do another load of laundry. It was either that or cleaning the kitchen. 

Upon reaching the bottom step, I heard the drip, drip, double-drip of water in the bathroom. As I revved up my rage, ready to roar at the spouse and/or son for their carelessness, I flung open the shower door and lighed (a combination of laugh and sigh). For, there, on the shower floor was the unmistakable evidence of a backed up sewer line. 

The sigh was for, “Like we need this right about now?”

The laugh was for, “It could be oh, so much worse right about now.”

So, I speed-dialed the local drain scooper-outer for the second time in as many months. 

The irony that I was now waiting for an actual repair person was not lost on me.  

“Glad to be able to support my local snaker,” I said, clenching my fists in hopes that this wasn’t the big one. The one they’ve been warning us about for years. The time to replace the sewer line at a multi-thousand dollar cost one. You know, like the multi-thousand dollars our 401K lost in the last hour. 

And, again I laughed. At least we HAD, multi-thousands to lose from our 401K. Operative word, had.

Meanwhile, my hard-working spouse went senior shopping that morning. He was excited to learn that since he was now 60, he qualified for early-bird entrance at the grocery store, beginning at 6 am. He took the daughter’s car which basically sits out front anxiously awaiting her bi-monthly visits from Brooklyn. 

He wasn’t just out for mint chocolate chip ice cream; he was picking up milk and eggs for a friend in isolation following a pretty serious coronavirus stint in the hospital. In doing his good deed of the day, he scraped a curb and gashed a tire. He got out, jacked up the car and replaced the tire with a near-flat spare. 

When I finally rolled out of bed, after playing a few rounds of Words with Friends, he was well into his fourth hour of wakefulness, interviewing hospital officials for corona quotes. He muted his call and asked if I would go purchase a new tire. 

I bristled. Rather than battling back, I said I'd take care of it. After tending to my own needs. I headed off on the first of many daily walks I've taken to taking. As I listened to the radio and the latest corona counts, all I could think of was my near future and ultimate demise, sitting in a germ-filled waiting room of a big box tire store, flipping through germ-filled magazines and handing my credit card to a gloveless cashier who had just wiped her nose, then getting back into the car, touching the steering wheel before remembering that the tire guy had touched it first, presumably with his own nose-wiped hands. 

As I made the loop toward home and passed an auto repair shop on the corner, a light bulb went on. This is what he meant! My spouse hadn't intended for me to risk my life over a tire after all. I could take care of business by supporting a local small business while standing outside and practicing social distancing. And, duh. I could wipe the steering wheel with Lysol. Which, of course I could have also done at the big box tire store, but I hadn't been thinking clearly when my mind started spinning.

And so, I talked from afar to the nice, kind worker who informed me they were only open for another hour, so to hurry on home and find out the size of the tire. I texted him the info and he called back with a good news/bad news answer. Yes, they had a tire in stock, but it was $140 dollars, plus labor. I rolled my eyes, thinking that was an awful lot to spend on a car with more than 140,000 miles on it, but imagined both the joy of pleasing my spouse and of crossing something off my list of things to do while quarantined.

“It's only money,” I said, adding that I’d rather give them the business than a big tire store and that I’d send my son right over with the car.

“Do you have the receipt?” I asked, when said son returned a half-hour later. You know, trying to keep my affairs in order. Just in case. 

“There wasn’t one,” he responded, tossing me my credit card after wiping it with down an alcohol swab.

“Well, how much was the total?” I asked, somewhat exasperated. 

“Nothing. He did it for free.” 

It took me a while to wrap my brain around that one. 

“Are you sure you didn’t just walk out without paying?” I asked, never fully trusting my own offspring.

The son, the philosophy major son, struck up a conversation with the owner, and the two began commiserating over our new reality. Just a simple, "Can you believe the state of the world?" "Imagine hoarding toilet paper at a time like this." "We should all just be good people," kind of conversation.

And the owner, who shall not be named, but will get lots of future service and five-star yelp reviews, said, “We’re good” and sent my boy on his way.

Back to the sewer line. Well, the sewer line is filled with roots, as we knew, and have known. But, they were able to snake it out one more time, leaving us with a can of root-eating crystals to flush down the toilet for extra protection.

Jim, from across the street, came out to tinker with his boat-in-the-driveway as I was tinkering with the bill, trying to sign my name without touching anything. 

“Great to see some normalcy in the neighborhood,” he called, knowing that three of us on the block had given this same guy business on the same day back in January. But, with any luck, he won’t be back to visit any of us until the Corona crisis has passed and our bank accounts have begun to replenish themselves. 

In the meantime, we continue to live our lives in that service repair window, not sure if they'll show up right at one-o-clock, at five minutes to five, or if they'll come at all. We wait with anticipation to see what the cost will be. Physically, emotionally and financially. 

But, as we sit around waiting for the axe to fall, we can look out into the world and see the daffodils blooming, the trees budding, hear the robins singing and realize that it's not ALL doom and gloom. A friend is discharged from the hospital. Another's fever is gone. That sneeze you sneezed last night was nothing more than a sneeze. That cough your spouse coughed was nothing more than a cough. The local business you were trying to help flips it around and helps you instead. 

And then, right after you’ve paid that big sewer-snaking bill, that may or may not be the last one of the year, the Fed Ex guy comes bounding out of his truck and drops a box on your front porch. 

Hope springs eternal. 

It’s your Mets' season tickets. 

Safe at Sea

I’m not sure when I caught the guilt virus. But, I’m suspecting it was when I went to a wedding in my early 20s and blatantly defied the priest by taking communion as a non-Catholic. The act itself caused me no remorse, but when the couple divorced a few years later, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was all my fault. 

I question everything I do and take blame, never credit, for the way things turn out. But, I am admittedly somewhat selfish when it comes to my own personal comforts and pleasures. 

Which, is why I decided last week to forge ahead and go on my annual cruise with Patty, my bosom buddy and partner in crime. 

Patty has catastrophic anxiety. She worries about hurricanes, aging mothers, dogs in kennels, and icebergs. I have personal comfort anxiety. I worry about my hair frizzing, room temperatures, popping buttons, and my extra cup of ice. So, I figured I’d be the one calming her qualms when it came to our annual Caribbean cruise aboard the long-awaited, super-hyped, billion-dollar Celebrity Edge. The Caribbean cruise that was celebrating International Women’s Day with an all-female bridge and officer team. The Caribbean cruise with Captain Kate McCue, the first American female cruise ship captain, at the helm. I mean, how could we NOT go? 

When I left for Florida just eleven days ago, the Coronavirus was real, but still far enough removed that there wasn’t a definitive right or wrong. Besides, I’m “young” and healthy. There were no refunds being offered for frightened cruisers and as someone who hasn’t had so much as a common cold in the past seven years, I was one of those, “so what if I get the flu?” people. 

My ever-loving, non-alarmist spouse thought it was a bad idea to go, a very bad idea. 

So, after elbow-bumping him goodbye at the airport, I experienced a wave of serious guilt. In response, I did what I always do – I began verbally processing, asking every third person in the airport if I was crazy. When the skycap let me slide with an overweight 52.8 pound suitcase (extra Spanx in case we were quarantined at sea) and I asked if he would go on a cruise if he were me, he simply shrugged his shoulders and handed me my boarding pass. Along with a Deeper Life Bible Church pamphlet entitled, “Only One Life.” A message I chose to interpret as, “Go For It.” 

And, so I did.

Though I appeared outwardly confident, my insides were shaking, not sure that all the bourbon on the boat could keep the virus at bay.

“Is it safe?” I asked Marion, the Celebrity Cruise employee at our second point of entry, the first point of entry being our temperature check.  

“Absolutely!” she chirped.

“You didn’t look me in the eye when you said that!” I quipped back at her. 

She laughed and looked me full in the face and assured me that we’d be fine. 

I soon learned she was an ex-Jersey girl herself and that she had family members in both the media and the healthcare industries. Because, of course, I can’t just say “thank you,” and move on. I need backstories. 

As she ushered us onward, she unpinned a little purple ribbon (in honor of International Women’s Day) from her chest and handed it to me. 

“We’re supposed to give this to a passenger who makes a big impression on us,” she explained. 

“Oh, like the first impression rose on The Bachelor!” I said, immediately launching into Peter the Pilot’s idiocy.

At the next point of entry, Patty received her purple ribbon from Tina, a woman full of genuine glee, or perhaps, just good at faking it. Patty’s ribbon was bestowed upon her simply for putting up with me. 

And, then we walked the gangplank. There was no turning back. 

“If I don’t make it home, know that I will have died doing something I love,” I sent in the family group text half-way through my first umbrella drink. “And if I do die, know that it in no way negates how much I love all of you.”

Spoiler alert. I made it home unscathed. 

But, not without having to navigate some pretty choppy waters.

Little did we know that this would be an historical sailing, for more reasons than one. As well as being the only ship in the seas being navigated by a woman, it ended up being the only ship with a clean enough bill of health to be allowed to dock in St. Maarten. And, it ended up being the last ship to sail before Corona put the kibosh on cruising.

With public relations being ultra-important in a crisis, we couldn’t get a straight answer on how many were on board, though common consent was that it was about 2/3rds full. Our perception of those projected stats shilly-shallied from being proud to be amongst 2,000 people brave enough to not back out, to being embarrassed to be amongst 2,000 people too stupid not to back out. 

But, regardless of the conditions, on a cruise ship, the show must go on. And, so it did. 

For the first few days, the weather at sea mirrored the turbulence on land. Much too gray and cool and windy to go outside, people were ever-connected to their phones, sharing stock market horror stories and counting confirmed COVID-19 cases. March Madness was going to be played without spectators.The MLB was delaying Opening Day by two weeks. Cruise ships were offering refunds for future sailings. And then, wham. NBA season canceled. NCAA canceled. NHL canceled. Broadway went dark. Amtrak service cut. Schools closed. Restaurants closed. Malls closed. Europe closed. 

Friends were emailing like mad, sending news stories and speculations and concern. Each and every one of them signed with the unspoken, “You are absolutely crazy to have gone on that cruise.”

Call it luck. Call it fate. Call it Captain Kate. But, our ship didn’t have a single passenger or a single crew member with a single symptom. And even after we knew that no ships would be sailing for a long, long time, the crew never stopped smiling, even though their futures were so uncertain. Where would they go? What would they do? How could they survive financially? As it turned out, the ship is anchored somewhere out there and the crew remains, with pay, on board. And Captain Kate, bless her soul, announced just yesterday that while in limbo, the 1,300 crew members would get to cruise like guests, moving from below deck to balcony staterooms. 

Though I have no doubt that Captain Kate was holding her breath through every rogue wave and breaking news story last week, her sense of calm and sense of humor made for smooth sailing for both cast and crew.

I wouldn't have traded that trip for a thousand medical masks. 

When random people are thrown together in crisis, confusion, or downright chaos, they are always rewarded with a life-long bond. Together, as new friends, we weathered the storm, all the while knowing we had our own new realities and worries waiting at home. Wayne and Brian unsure of their immediate futures, both in different branches of the travel industry. Bob and Sharon thinking about their daughter and three grandchildren in Seattle; their son-in-law, a medical professional in the epicenter of the pandemic. Don wondering if he'd get clearance to go back to work or if his two little Fidos would be his sole companions for weeks on end. Patty lamenting not being able to visit her 92 year-old mother in her senior living residence. Kit knowing her family trip to Las Vegas was canceled; her son away at a college not yet closed. Chris and Les realizing they'll be sniping at each other as they work from home for God knows how long, but knowing they have stockpiles of hand sanitizer. And plenty of new colorful bowls and spoons. And, though I can't see my 94 year-old mother or my California kid for awhile, and have only seen the daughter on FaceTime, get to spend all my days and nights with my youngest kid, the dang dog who's never gotten more walks in his life, and my ever-loving journalist of a spouse who keeps me informed of all things Corona.  

Every single person on board was worried. About the health of their loved ones. The health of their 401K plans. And the health of the world we were sailing back into. 

But, together, living on the Edge, we put aside what was yet to come. We had dinners together. We went to shows together. We lost money in the casino together. We laughed at the Eden performers together. We walked through old San Juan together. We had cocktails together. Lots of cocktails together. 

And when it all came to an end, we broke the rules. After all that we'd shared - the angst, the alcohol, the calories, the conversation, the fear, the fun, our hopes, our hearts - we hugged each other tight. 

And then we washed our hands and came home.