The long goodbye: Reflections on the pandemic

by Paul Crandall

As the U.S. edition of the COVID-19 pandemic rounded third base and came slogging home for its one-year anniversary, some now find ourselves reflecting on where we were when it first snuck into our consciousness, and what the virus has left in its wake.

Looking back at my own journal entries from the before-times, the Januaries and Februaries and up into March, 2020, I see very different days. It’s stunning now to think of it – being at a bar called Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti that was packed literally shoulder to shoulder – for you to move 10 feet, a half-dozen other people had to shift, too – and all of us shouting over the band to be heard by companions.

We celebrated, oblivious to the hail of micro-droplets we had together launched into the charged air. On another occasion I was at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, which was packed to the gills for a concert by the Beninese musician Angelique Kidjo – a tribute to the Talking Heads’ 1980 Remain in Light album. We sang along to the song, Born Under Punches, happily unaware of the impending irony:

All I want is to breathe. Won’t you breathe with me?

Find a little space, so we move in between,

And keep one step ahead of yourself

—Lyrics by Byrne & Eno

On Feb. 27, back in my own local stomping grounds of Stockbridge, the Cravingz cafe was jumping with a packed-full house of its own – a typically boisterous, happy, Thursday crowd kissing goodbye to February with laughter, libations and live music. The next day, my wife, Jo, and I packed up and lit out for Chicago where we took a sleeper train to Grand Junction, Colorado. There, as COVID was nudging into the news cycle, we blithely undertook a hiking trip at Zion, Bryce, Arches and other national parks in Utah. No restrictions or masks in place anywhere we went.

Moving around on the train meant brushing shoulders with people in the narrow corridor, sometimes stopping at corners to let folks pass, all close quarters. We thought nothing of it.

Eleven days later, on the night we returned, we celebrated our happy return with friends over a game of cards and dinner and drinks at the Chelsea Ale House. There, our server telegraphed with her mask what was in the offing: The coronavirus was gathering steam and  dominating the airwaves.

The subjects of my journal entries from that point forward change considerably. In retrospect, it seems the pandemic’s shuttering of get-togethers and nights-out had the effect of opening other doors to other places.

There was that April backyard visit from an itinerant duck. He appeared, not on the pond where we sometimes see his kind, but in an open lane, standing still as a statue, gazing west. It struck me as odd to see him out in the open, doing…nothing. Nothing at all. Was he stunned? Hurt, somehow? Mourning a lost mate? Or just waiting to see what might come next in this seemingly frozen and bewildering time of coronavirus? He seemed to be, like the rest of the world, literally holding his breath.

And then:

April 20: First-ever sighting of a pileated woodpecker in our backyard

May 3: Spring peepers are coming on strong, symphonic with a pulsing chorus. We open our windows to better hear them.

May 6: Spotted a bald eagle flying overhead while walking the Lakelands Trail south of Munith; spotted the first oriole at our own hummingbird feeder and put out raspberry jam for it.

May 8: Wow! This morning we saw a pair of wood ducks at the pond, multiple orioles and a rose-breasted grosbeak near the house, and the first hummingbird of the year, as well as our usual host of cardinals and goldfinches, jays, sparrows, redwing blackbirds, fly-by mallards, etc.

May 9: Spotted a Great Blue Heron standing at the edge of our pond, preening.

May 14: Today the buds on the apple trees blossomed into flowers.

The pandemic had brought a feeling of being a tourist in my own backyard, experiencing things that, while not unfamiliar, seemed to fill my senses with fresh novelty, even awe. That prophetic visit from the still-as-a-statue duck notwithstanding, a whole lot was going on out there.

But as the COVID-heavy months wore on through summer, then fall, then on into the winter, a dire picture developed to rival the riotous sounds, color and bursting forth of the natural world.

In August, after a couple of weeks in home-based hospice, my mother died of congestive heart failure. Given the circumstances, we considered ourselves among the lucky. We had been able to visit, masked and distant, but at least in the same room, several times during her quick decline, and saw her within a day of her passing. Her home-hospice status kept her comfortable and spared her from the cool, mechanized sterility of a hospital stay.

So many among the less fortunate were being treated in isolation, made off-limits, effectively held hostage by the extreme conditions imposed by the pandemic. This was true for both those stricken directly by the virus and those whose mortality had just happened to coincide, simply arriving with bad timing.

There was no proper church funeral for my mom, but we were able to be with her at the end, and to say goodbye. This was a great comfort. It’s as if the pandemic, which has called attention to so many aspects of our individual and collective frailty, has also illuminated the whole curious business of saying goodbye. It has confounded that quest for closure. Even if you’re able to arrive at a kind of peace with the parting, as we were with my mother, in what way is it complete? In what way will it ever feel complete?

There is a stage of development found in very young children called Object Permanence. It’s the understanding that things exist even when they can no longer be seen, touched or sensed in some other way. So at some point while playing with young children, you may hide your face behind your hands and the children don’t  understand that the face is really still there, just hidden. Later, after their eyes have been opened, so to speak, they realize that the face is still, somehow, kind of magically, still there. Even though they can’t see it. It’s there, and it’s not there, at the same time.

Even in the dead of winter we know that spring will come, and the peepers, the apple blossoms, the birds – they will return. Loved ones lost to us will remain alive through our memories, revisiting us whenever we call thoughts of them forth, or when we happen across reminders. Gone, but still here.

By the end of the year, it was clear the prevailing character of the pandemic was a sense of loss. Lost jobs, lost businesses, life savings burned through, loss of equanimity, of confidence, of stability, of security, of control, or the illusion of it. And then there was the suffering imposed directly by the virus, itself.

By November, Jo and I knew of several people who had contracted the disease. One had died of it. Some had been sent fighting for their lives to the hospital. One friend told us he passed the worst of it at home, sitting up in an easy chair through the nights, scared out of his wits and hoping each shallow, labored breath would not be his last.

And yet, complicating the picture, we also knew of people whose symptoms had been mild. News reports were full of them.

By December, with news of the arrival of vaccines, there seemed a new, wavering light at the end of the tunnel. True, it was not as close as anyone would like, but it was something. As the new year got underway, pictures of people getting  the vaccine started springing up like wildflowers.

Publishers churned out a hatful of new books with titles like Post Corona, from Crisis to Opportunity, and How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism, and Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World. Whatever the angle, the mere assertion that there would be a post-pandemic world, and that it was in sight, signaled a welcome optimism.

Even in the best of times, there is no inoculation against loss, but time can be an effective treatment. As I look back on the year and try to sum it up, the title of an old, not very good novel by Raymond Chandler comes to mind. The Long Goodbye seems to fit. But as the earth spins round and the new, young year takes hold, so does the title of a lyrical jazz tune written by Freddy Hubbard: Up Jumped Spring. I’m humming that tune now, looking out the window, waiting for the first oriole.

©Paul Crandall 2021