My COVID Reactions
To the editor:
How do you respond when someone reveals they have tested positive to COVID?
That question was raised in an article from Caring Bridge, and they suggested five responses, especially if the person telling you this scary news is a friend or loved one.
Five Things to Say to Show You Care
1. Ask how they are feeling
2. Check in on how they’re doing emotionally
3. Offer to bring what they need
4. Let them know you are there for them
5. Give them extra love
I found it enlightening, if not unrealistic. It certainly gave me fodder to ponder about my own reactions to such a pronouncement. To be quite frank, my initial thoughts and actions are somewhat different.
For instance, before asking how they are feeling, I would immediately ask if they have been vaccinated and ‘boostered,’ and shout obscenities if they say no.
If they happen to be standing close by, I would run a 100-yard dash at Olympic speed away from their contaminated breathing. If they are on the phone or have texted me, I would grab the antibacterial bottle and douse my hands, my keyboard, and perhaps my body in case a bit of COVID air was sent through the electronic gadgets. It could happen. After all, some folks believe the election was stolen.
I would take a mental inventory of how I was feeling, both emotionally and physically, then rush frantically to my medicine cabinet to make certain every conceivable remedy suggested by COVID experts was in reaching distance. They may have some magic tonic they know about aside from injecting bleach.
I doubt I would lie to them about ‘being there for them.’ Trust me, I would be nowhere in sight. ‘Distance makes the heart beat longer’ is my motto.
I could say I send them love and hope and prayers and a doctor’s name, but they may not be able to hear me from behind my triple masks. Besides sound doesn’t carry far from my storm shelter where I will be staying for the next year or so.
Being the coward I am, I would prefer you not put me on your list of notifications. Let me live in ignorance.
COVID and the Omicron variant are not joking matters. Friends, loved ones, and neighbors have died and are dying from their exposure to these diseases. That is the reason I am isolating, hoping those I know are doing the same things I am: wearing masks, getting vaccinated, and isolating.
Your life may depend on it.
Margo Johnson
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico