My oldest daughter has been helping her mom and me clean the apartment.
My other two daughters were planning to come visit us this week, but can’t now — even if they wanted to travel in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, the governor of Louisiana issued an order Sunday that all unnecessary trips outside of one’s home were not to be allowed. Louisiana, at the time of this writing, had the fastest growing spread of COVID-19 in the world.
My youngest son and his wife live in California and have been under mandatory quarantine since late last week. They’re amusing themselves by filing IRS paperwork and playing computer games. He’s trying to do some work from home, but nothing was coming his way yet.
My oldest son called me this afternoon and and the two of us and a friend of his played a game on speaker phone. That was a first for me, but fun — and it won’t be the last time we do something like that.
I know where my children are, that they are safe and — at least right now — not sick from the virus.
I am reasonably concerned, I think, about our family’s health. I have diabetes, my daughter-in-law and mother have chronic illness, my wife can’t get over a cough that has lingered months after her bronchitis finally cleared up. We are more susceptible to the ravages of this illness and must take the proper precautions. But we are not afraid.
One of our children lives with us, but the others are in two cities in Louisiana (normally three) and in a town near the other L.A. I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like. I would love it if I could live in a place that had wormhole doors to each of them, where a quick step and a moment or two could put us physically in the same place to see each other every single day.
I’m not sure if they’d want that, but I would love it.
When I was their ages, I couldn’t understand why Mom and Dad always wanted to know where I was, that I was at least safe and had what I needed, and wanted to talk to me pretty often. I still don’t call as often as I should, but I get it now. When you love your children, you just need to know these things. You need to hear their voices.
I love the fact that nearly 100 percent of our phone conversations end with “I love you” from each party.
When the powers that be say “Don’t touch your face,” I want to touch my face. It’s in my nature. I think it’s human nature.
I may have told this in this column before, but it bears retelling. When my first wife was waiting to have a procedure in a hospital years ago, a large red button on a metal square was on the wall above the hospital bed’s head. A sign proclaimed very clearly, “DO NOT TOUCH.”
I had to touch it. To shorten the story a bit, let’s just say I did, and a nurse burst into the room immediately. She stared right at me and said, “You pushed the button. Didn’t you?”
I nodded, and meekly asked what catastrophe or chaos I had caused.
“Nothing,” she said. “You just looked guilty.” Every husband pressed that button, she said. Human nature. We often do exactly the opposite of what we are told.
If I was preaching, this is where I would talk about sin.
But ever since I was little, no one has ever had to tell me to wash my hands. I am in full support of legislation that would require sirens and bright flashing lights to go off every time someone walks out of a public restroom without washing his or her hands. I’ve seen more children wash their hands than adults in public bathrooms.
That’s as far as I think I should talk about that subject here, but … it’s gross, people, and it’s gross people. Wash your hands.
I remember hand washing stations just inside the ICU of a hospital in Shreveport where I used to visit patients. This was one of those intensive care units that took exposure to its patients very seriously before I noticed it elsewhere. A nurse had to let you into the unit, then he or she would guide you directly to a hand washing station and make sure you followed the directions for cleaning that were posted over the lavatory. Once that was done, you were escorted to the room of the patient you were visiting. Once you were done with the visit, you had to return directly to the hand washing station and remain there until someone could let you out of the unit. The nurses’ station was directly opposite the doors and a lavatory was on either side. Signs by the lavatories also read, “Washing your hands could literally save someone’s life.”
Washing your hands more often now shouldn’t take that much more effort … and could literally save someone’s life.
This whole social seclusion thing is not too hard for some, and extremely difficult for some others. It’s an unprecedented time for most of us in our lives.
But we will get through it.
Christian singer/comedian Mark Lowry once said — well, probably said it a lot — that his favorite Scripture verse is “It came to pass.” Whatever it is, it came … to pass.
Good or bad, it won’t last. It had a beginning and it will have an end. Bad days will one day be a thing of the past. Life will one day return to “normal,” even if it’s a new normal.
But in the meantime, don’t forget your family and other loved ones. I have other family — siblings, nieces, nephews, in-laws, and friends who are just as close to me as family, so they’re family, too. Call them, text them, message them, write them a note (the Postal Service is still going, as of this writing) … video chat with them, play a game over the phone.
But don’t lose touch. We all need it.
Even those of us who don’t call as often as we should.]
