Day 116

Twenty-two years ago today — on July 9, 1998 — my best friend died in a car accident. I still think of Libby often. Sometimes, I even catch myself wondering what she would think about a particular event or person. I still miss her. And if I still miss her after all this time, I know I will never not miss Dad.

Today would have been my grandmother’s — Dad’s Mom’s — 102nd birthday. She lived into her nineties and Mom always thought Dad might inherit her genes and live a long life. And perhaps he might have, if Covid had killed him. Obviously we’ll never know what might have been, because all we are left with is what is. 

Last year, according to my memory on Facebook, my brother was visiting and the five of us — Mom, Dad, my brother, my son, and I — went out to dinner to celebrate Dad’s 71st birthday. The celebration was a week early, but it was rare my brother visited and so we capitalized on his presence. In the pictures, Dad is smiling. He’s happy. There is no indication in those shots that it would be his last birthday, that he would never age beyond 71. Dad posted a picture of the 3 Gs. He loved those pictures. He loved knowing that his name reached down into the third generation. He also posted a picture of the five us, my son’s arm around his shoulder because of everyone in my son’s life, he felt most connected to his grandfather.

This morning, we were supposed to have flown home from Disney. Today was supposed to mark the end of our ten day trip. We should have been sad that the adventure was over, not devastated that it will never happen. When dad first booked the flight, I noted the date, the fact that it was the anniversary of Libby’s death. I questioned whether it would be bad luck. Dad laughed. I’m sure it’s just coincidence, but it retrospect, if the return date had been the 10th instead, or the 8th, would he have survived?

I was looking at mom’s calendar this afternoon and on July 16th — Dad’s Birthday — she had written (back in January because she always lays out her calendar early marking anniversaries and other significant dates): Please let Gary have a  peaceful, joyful, healthy & stress free year. Whomever she was addressing obviously didn’t listen. Or if he did, he didn’t care. Dad’s year will definitely not be joyful and it won’t be healthy because he is dead. It still doesn’t make sense. Shitty people are alive, and Dad isn’t. This virus should have killed people who didn’t take it seriously. People who make a mockery of it. Not someone who wasn’t given sufficient information to make a smart decision.

In the morning, I took my usually walk and circled Juniper Valley Park. It was crowded. People were out biking, playing tennis, running, and walking their dogs. Some wore masks. Most didn’t. The playgrounds were open, but empty. There was traffic on the roads. Aside of the two freshly dug graves in the cemetery, one might have thought we weren’t still in the midst of a pandemic. One might have believed the world was back to normal. But the statistics tell a very different story. New York might be healing but the rest of the country is dying. The death toll now stands at 135,000. It won’t stop rising. Not until we have a vaccine or a serious president in the White House.

I went to the bank with Mom today. She had an appointment and asked me to accompany her. She’s still learning to live alone and wants to make sure she doesn’t miss anything important. After the bank, she, my son, and I played games. Visiting her in the Queens house in the summer is odd. In the summer, we alway went to the beach house. My son and I will head there tomorrow, but my brother is coming here on Saturday for a few days, so Mom can’t come with us. I’ll have to come back and pick her up after my brother leaves. We used to visit to spend time together as a family. To have fun and enjoy each other’s company. Now, it feels like we visit to pass the time, to make it less boring for my mother. To make time move faster because when we aren’t here it slows to a crawl and the emptiness engulfs and swallows her. 

Sometimes, lately, I feel as if I have spent my entire life preparing for this pandemic. I studied — even earned graduate degrees — in history and creative writing, but got no where with either my diplomas or my knowledge. Yet I was poised to write an account for future historians about life in New York during the lockdown. Years of practice and toiling about on one writing project after another may not have interested an agent or a book editor, but it gave me a voice to tell Dad’s story. If I were a successful writer, I’d probably be too busy writing about things people wanted to read to bother counting fresh graves in the local cemetery. And now, with the new school year approaching and pitting parents against teachers, my son will have the opportunity to be educated at the Jaeger School. With a degree in education, three certifications, and years of experience, I am more than qualified to homeschool my son. And since I’m unemployed, it’s not like I need to pressure any one else into babysitting him for me. If I were an optimistic person, I might actually think fate had conspired to make sure I was prepared to meet the misery of 2020 with a battle axe and riot gear. But I’m not an optimist, and so, the reality is, failure in everything that ever mattered has left me with nothing better to do than write day after day, and prepare lessons for my one student school. If nothing else it will make me feel important — a nice facade, better than crying myself to sleep every night.

As for the rest of the students in America, September will be a comedy of errors — of that I am certain. Opening schools would be wonderful, but we don’t have the resources to do it safely. Nor do we as a society want to invest more money into education. Every time I think of the possibility of schools opening, I have more questions, and as the questions pile up, the doubt of being able to pull it off safely and responsibly begins to multiply. And considering Dad died of the virus, and my spouse is a teacher, my fear regarding schools is very real, but it is also grounded in personal experience. 

How can we keep kids six feet apart without spreading them out into more classrooms? How can we spread them out without hiring more teachers?

How can you expect teachers to put their lives in danger when they get paid so poorly?

How can you expect other school staff who aren’t full-time —because the district is too cheap to give them benefits —to show up when they don’t even have health insurance? (Thanks for that one, Dale.)

Who will the subs be when most subs are retired teacher, you know the people most at risk? (This is my spouse’s favorite.)

How many extra sick days will teachers get if they have to stay home every time they have a headache or a cough?

Will administrators have a backbone and mandate that every child wear a mask? Will they immediately send kids home if they refuse?

Will administrators tell parents to keep their kids home if the kids are too entitled to wear a mask? 

How can special ed kids be helped in the bathroom and with other necessities if six feet of distance is required?

How can you have music class when the wind instruments are certain to spread germs?

How can you have lunch in a crowded cafeteria? And if kids eat in the classroom who will supervise them?

Schools make teachers buy their own paper. Whose is going to pay for all the hand sanitizer?

Who will clean every surface of every classroom every day?

The list goes on. But won’t bore you any further.

Just remember, a teacher’s job is to educate not to babysit. Teachers taught remotely for three months. Parents are responsible for their children. If they need babysitters, those babysitters need to be paid sufficiently considering what they are up against. And if parents refuse to make their kids wear masks, I hope they don’t ever buy another teacher a plant or make them lunch on teacher appreciation day. In not making kids mask-up, parents are demonstrating that they definitely do not appreciate the teachers.