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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: A Mother’s Day like no other
By
Published: May 05, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
I cheered this news: Irish pubs will be closed until August 10. Maybe longer. Imagine that: a sacred privilege of Irish citizenship, postponed.
I was also cheered by this, on Twitter:
I told a guy in the market that I was a nurse in a covid unit and I wear a mask to protect him — but if he was ok with me not wearing it I could take it off. He put his milk and Gold Bond down and left the store. Made my day. I’m not a nurse. But I’d like to be.
But very little these days cheers me. We live in chaos, it’s Dunkirk every day. Jay Rosen summed it up:
“The plan is to have no plan” is not a strategy, really… To wing it without a plan is merely the best this government can do, given who heads the table. The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump’s personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius there, only a damaged human being playing havoc with our lives.
The unmasked crowds enjoying themselves were inevitable. I knew it would be like this, but the photographs have been giving me the sads in a big way. Some recent personal distress has compounded that. I need to slow down, get some rest, work on my novel about a kid who’s a lot better than I am and inspires me to be better — I need to take care of myself so I can take care of others.
That’s one reason why this Mother’s Day edition of Butler is thin.
Another reason: Maybe it should be.
This time last year, my mother was 102, still living in her apartment in Rancho Bernardo, and so feisty that I defined elder abuse as “a 102 year-old woman abusing a 73 year-old man.”
This year, she’s in an assisted living home in La Jolla. State of the art, thank God — it’s so locked down it might as well be hermetically sealed. Doctors can get in. And only doctors. I call my mother every day. On a good day she can recite poetry she learned 90 years ago. On other days she doesn’t understand the connection between the staff members wearing masks and the facility’s 0% mortality rate from the virus.
My mother’s residence in prosperous La Jolla is a chip shot from beleaguered San Diego, where 40% of the residents visited food banks in April. The photo above shows the line up at a drive-thru emergency food distribution center at SDCCU by the food bank Feeding San Diego on Saturday, April 5th.
My mother is massively sight-challenged. Her strongest sense is touch, so my brother and I are sending her a $9 set of fake pearl necklaces from Amazon. And then we’re donating to the San Diego Food Bank. Alleviating suffering — especially the suffering of children — feels like the best way to honor our mother.
Every situation is unique. You may need or want to buy actual gifts. I don’t have the heart or the energy to create the Mother’s Day list I’ve featured every year for a decade, so I’m linking to the 2019 Mother’s Day feature — it pleased many last year, and may do so again. Even now.
TODAY’S MUSIC
Bruce Springsteen sings “Save the Last Dance for Me” and dances with a mother.
LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE
by Nora Ephron & Delia Ephron
with Lucy DeVito, Tracee Ellis Ross, Carol Kane, Natasha Lyonne and Rosie O’Donnell
This intimate collection of stories is based on the bestseller by Ilene Beckerman, as well as on the recollections of the Ephrons’ friends. The play uses clothing and accessories and the memories they trigger to tell funny and often poignant stories.
This limited online release of the 2017 performance will be available for three weeks, starting today, as a benefit for the 92nd Street Y. For information and tickets, click here.
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES
Everything, all in one place.
UPDATE: EO Hand Soap is available again. As is the great Vitamin C.
UPDATE: I spoke with a NYC lung specialist. He endorses Vitamin D, but warns you not to double/triple dose. In large doses, Vitamin D becomes toxic.
