A Letter To My Parents Who Are Six Feet Away From Me

Dear Mom and Dad, 

You are old. You know that, I don’t need to remind you. If you get this virus, it could be bad. Especially you, Dad, with your health issues. I am the only one that goes out to get groceries and prescriptions. I am the one most likely to carry the virus to either one of you and infect both of you. This is a heavy burden on my heart. 

Dad, you said to me the other day, "If I get it, I don't know if I will survive." I told you not to say that. Please don't say that. Mom, you are tigress. If you get it you are the strongest woman I know, you will give Coronavirus something to talk about. I don't want you to get it though, either.

I’ve instituted the stay 6 feet away from you both recently because I am afraid. I’m afraid for your life. I know I live in the basement apartment and I spend most of my time there, but I must say I come upstairs to talk to someone on this planet, to see how you are, to connect in some kind of way.  And because I love you.

If I get one, even one symptom, I will isolate in the basement. But for now, we are 6 feet apart and that is fine. Dad, I had to break the rule the other day because your blood pressure dropped so low you would have fallen if I had not held your arm and helped you to get to the couch. 

You both have protected me my entire life. You gave me everything, everything and anything I ever needed, more than what I needed. Everything I ever wanted. More than what I wanted. You gave me life. 

Now I want to preserve yours. 

Mom, I know you hate it when I endlessly mock the president during his press briefings that you insist on watching. The last time when the president said he read something, I laughed a little too loud for your taste, stating that I didn’t know he could read. 

You are right Mom, it’s not good to hate someone this much. 

But I do. 

Dad, you laugh at my jokes about the president a little more. You secretly like that I mock him, you often join in on the mocking. You are a funny man, dad. Your jokes are better than dad jokes. Like the time you said that we need to all wear Burkha and stop asking Muslim women why they’ve been doing it their whole lives, this is their moment to be in style. Burkha is the
"ultimate solution," you said.

I can’t decide if that’s offensive or not but I will admit I laughed.  

Dad, I know how much you love Chris Cuomo on CNN. He got Coronavirus and I know that made you sad. I didn't tell you this, but he said his fever was so bad he was hallucinating and saw his dead father, the former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo. I wasn't really truly scared until I heard that. He's around my age. But I don't want you to worry about me, I'm the one in the room with the best odds to beat this thing if I get it.

Mom, we both talk really loud, so it’s no problem hearing each other from six feet away, or a mile, whichever. I know you think my voice is even louder than yours, and that’s possible, but I got it from you. I also got my passion from you, the passion that makes me want to scream when I hear how we don’t have enough medical supplies for health professionals and my sister is a nurse practitioner. 

Mom, I know you both worry about your other daughter as she works on the frontlines. But you need to understand that she is doing exactly what you did when you worked as a doctor. Healthcare workers are risking their lives to save lives because they consider that their job, their only job, in life. Just as you once did when you worked on patients with HIV and no one knew how it was transmitted.   

Dad, you called me at three o’clock this morning to ask me if I was in my room. You said you heard the garage door open, but it was really just the toilet flushing. I went to the bathroom. No, I did not run out of the house in the middle of the night in the middle of a worldwide lockdown and global pandemic. Where would I go and why would I go in the middle of the night when I literally don't leave the house all day, every day? 

But you are hallucinating because you can’t sleep. And I was up when you called because I can’t sleep either. And I gave you some Benadryl and broke my 6-foot rule again because you are blind and cannot find the pills and I had to hand you the pill in your hand. I got to touch you though, and that touch was hopefully not deadly. 

I know you both like to listen to conspiracy theories about how this virus was created in a lab in China to be used as a biological weapon. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying if it’s not on national news, there may be a problem with the validity of those theories. I’m not saying you are stupid. Far from that, you warned me about this virus far before anyone, including me, was taking it seriously. 

I called you paranoid. 

Apparently you were right. 

The older I get, it seems the smarter you get. I think Mark Twain said that about his parents. 

You made me the smart kid that I am. But I’m not a kid anymore. Now it’s my job to take care of you. If one of us gets this virus, I will take care of us as much as I can. If one of us dies, I will still take care of us. If it’s me, then you must take care of yourselves for me. 

But the numbers are in our favor. If we just stay in the house mocking Trump, we will most likely survive. 

As we share this house and sometimes sit in the same room, I wish I could hug you. I can’t wait to hug you. I want you to know my only purpose in life right now is to keep you alive. That’s it. I have one job. 

I’m sitting here doing it by doing nothing. 

Thank you for doing everything, everything, for me. 

Asking me to do nothing is not really a big request. It is the least I can do. 

nina

I have been featured in a new blog called, Corona Chronicles, check it out here…