My husband was one of the first to die, a foot soldier in a war that never ends. He'd been a nurse, a dedicated one as we lived in one of the first areas to be ravaged by it. I still remember the day he awoke and said he didn't feel good, but thought it was just a cold or the beginning of the flu. Instead he got worse, not better and I eventually took him to the emergency room of the local hospital. He had told me it was bad, but the chaos I found there was overwhelming. Identifying him as a nurse there got him some expedited treatment but it was obvious as I prowled the halls as he weakened, day by day, that it was just out of control. The halls were lined with those without a bed. The emergency room overflowed because there was nowhere to send patients. What was it? Who did it affect? I first heard the old and vulnerable were most affected. Stan was 25, a fit man who worked out regularly at the hospital gym. Watching him struggle to breathe was traumatic. His parents and mine were extremely supportive and equally worried. His brother flew in and stayed, taking extended leave to be with us. In the end, our hopes and prayers weren't enough. He died at 25 years, 4 months and 26 days, after just over three years of marriage.
The hospital was so supportive, a large contingent coming to his funeral that dark, windy day. Friends gathered around and food magically appeared courtesy of friends and members of our church. It was truly a blessing, a sign of hope in a world gone mad. But the blessing turned into a nightmare as friends, his co-workers and family members were sickened, some to die in the same horrible way he had died. There was just this dark cloud overhead. My grandmother contracted it and died in a matter of days, as many patients and even staff at her nursing home also died.
I went from bad to worse. None of the five stages of grief prepares you to watch those you know and love die in isolation as frantic research said it was spread through the air. And it just kept spreading, reaching every part of the world. Parts of the world just shut down, like people who dealt with the Plague of medieval times by closing the gates of the town to stop travelers from entering in, hoping that would prevent it.
Through it all, I lived in dread. Dread of living alone. Dread of those I loved also dying. Dread that the world we had known would never return. I had no hope. Every day was a struggle just to exist. Every phone call was some harbinger of disaster.
I found solace in a group through my church. It was open-ended: there were widows and widowers; those who had lost a loved one; those who just, like me, had no hope. I was three for three in this group, having had my husband so shockingly pass away, friends and relatives sicken, some to die and having no hope that things would ever improve. We all tried to find a way, halting though it was. I developed friends with a few who seemed most like-minded. We went out for coffee after our meetings, sometimes finding us by ourselves in an otherwise empty place. We were all drawn inward. We all hoped it would pass. It didn't pass, it only got worse as the worldwide death count rose daily.
Four long years passed, one day at a time. Island states were able to withstand it but at the cost of isolating themselves. World wide commerce all but halted. People sat at home, surrounded by their children as schools were closed, jobs were lost and as charlatans said it was the end of days. The world was in upheaval as millions, unable to work and equally unable to pay mortgage or rent, were cast out. It was a time of false prophets, those who said they alone knew the path back to normalcy. After four long years, the question was: what was normalcy? We heard of miracle cures, of vaccines but their arrival just seemed to recede into the future. The very fabric of modern life unraveled before our eyes.
I stayed at home. My loving husband had bought something called mortgage insurance and our ever so humble home was paid for. I was able to live on survivors benefits through his work. When I say I stayed home, I mean I was a hermit. I decided to forego the group I had known even as members of that group died. I texted and emailed and talked on the phone to friends and family as we counted our blessings for one more day and consoled each other at the inevitable losses. No one went to funerals anymore. They had become death traps.
How did I survive? I think it was largely due to one person. My neighbor, Jenny, was also a young woman, one whose husband up and left, leaving her with a house payment she could not afford. She lived off their savngs, well, what her deadbeat husband hadn't siphoned off. As the time approached for her to lose the house, I offered her a place to stay. At first we thought it would be temporary but as the months passed it became clear that was not to be. My garage held my one car on one side. The other half was filled with her furniture and belongings. it was depressing to see the house she had once called home sit empty. No one could afford it, even as prices plummeted. One day there was a ruckus there and we found out squatters had broken in and lived there without electricity. Desperate times and all that, you know?
But I digress. Jenny had much the same pot of problems that I had, though hers was far bigger: she had no income. I was supporting her. In return she was doing far more than her share of our cooking, cleaning and yard work to offset her lack of financial contribution. I knew I was fortunate and it seemed the right thing to do, to help another in difficult times. Half the homes on our block were vacant, or so it seemed. We decided to let the front yard go wild so the house wouldn't stand out from the others. She had one asset I did not have: she had the firearm her deadbeat husband had left behind. They had taken classes together and gone to the firing range so she knew how to use it. We read online about break-ins. Our working class neighborhood seemed an unlikely candidate for such but we also read of people stripping a house of anything that could be sold. People were that desperate. She taught me how to load and to aim, how to thumb off the safety and to do everything but pull the trigger. We practiced breaking it down and cleaning it until we were both proficient. It was in a drawer beside her bed.
We had a lot of time on our hands, time that we shared, time we used to speak of what we had lost and missed. We drove around and looked at all the vacant stores, noticing how few people were out and about. We walked in parks, Jenny carrying her weapon in her oversize purse just in case it was needed. We worked on a garden, mended fences, kept the back yard, fixed what broke. Eventually, I told her of what I had gained. "Jenny, I'm so glad you're here. I would hate to be here alone, wondering what might happen. It's just a blessing." Time drew us closer as we waited for the world to restart, though it seemed at times that was a fairytale people told their kids. The world was truly mad.
