Dear COVID-19,
While we (to the best of my knowledge) have not met, you have deeply scarred me.
Like any traumatic experience, my brain has blocked these events for self-preservation. Unfortunately I’ve learned that these ugly dark memories can be triggered – by the news, a radio commentary, a product, a post on social media, and so on. I may not recognize the trigger immediately because my body and mind have suddenly clenched in sheer rage and sorrow, simultaneously.
“The origin of the word trauma
– Amanda Gorman (Good Grief)
Is not just “wound,” but “piercing” or “turning,”
As blades do when finding a home.
Grief commands its own grammar,
Structured by intimacy & imagination.
We often say:
We are beside ourselves with grief.
We can’t even imagine.
This means anguish can call us to envision
More than what we believed was carriable
Or even survivable.”
You may assume I am declaring how you impacted my personal life. You would be wrong. My deplorable experiences with you were purely professional. (And yes, I am eternally grateful that your affect only ever reached that far.)
When triggers occur, my brain/body transports back to 2020-21 working days – fighting to stabilize my erratic breathing, and electrified with adrenaline. Internally flooded with anxiety, sorrow, angst, desperation, worry, panic, and devastation.
My profession is to ensure hospitals have the products, supplies, equipment, instruments, and systems required to treat patients.
March 2020: almost immediately all PPE supplies dissipated due to global demand (and hoarding): masks, gloves, face shields, goggles, gowns, bouffant caps, hand sanitizer, shoe covers… Nothing was available from trusted vendors, and third-party vendors offered inferior products at unconscionable rates just because they could. We persevered.
Through it all, one assignment haunts me to my core.
One product.
An item no one associates with you or ever considers, even though your path of destruction has claimed millions of lives (*6,669,730 to-date).
Body bags.
During the days when you remained unclassified, we had no idea how you spread. Even after it was determined that you were transmissible through respiratory droplets and aerosols (when an infected person breathes, coughs, sneezes, sings, shouts, or talks), utmost precautions were also required for bodily fluids and gases expelled from the deceased.
While there are typically hundreds of variations available, our pandemic criteria was clinically very specific, thus making it extremely difficult to find a suitable product. Time was of the essence, and yet there was no time…
This task shattered me.
I couldn’t sleep; times when I did fall asleep, I bolted alert at all hours racking my brain for solutions.
I cried – a lot. (still do)
I couldn’t think about anything else. My mind continually ruminated the same information, the same terrifying reality.
It was my own private Hell.
The world around me was dealing and trying to cope with you in a myriad of ways; action, inaction, reaction.
How could I possibly disclose that humans were dying at a rate impossible to keep up with? That entire wards had been turned into holding areas for the deceased? That refrigerated vehicles were being rented for additional storage? That the morgue had me on speed-dial awaiting a solution and reporting daily death toll? There are many morbid details I cannot (will not) share. It was this knowledge that nearly broke me.
How somber (and sobering!) is it to admit that finally finding the ideal body bag was a major accomplishment in my professional career?
While society took to social media to lament over missed vacations & having to quarantine & not seeing their loved ones & social distancing, I was shouldering the responsibility of safely and respectfully preparing someone’s loved one(s) for final transport.
“..Even as we stand stone-still,
– Amanda Gorman (The Shallows)
It’s with the entirety of what we’ve lost
Sweeping through us like a ghost.
What we have lived
Remains undecipherable.
& yet we remain.
& still, we write.
& so, we write.
Watch us move above the fog
Like a promontory at dusk.
Shall this leave us bitter?
Or better?
Grieve.
Then choose.”
Please know that though you have scarred me, you have not defeated me. My gratitude for the many blessings in my life are celebrated and acknowledged each and every day. It is through my gratitude that I will heal, and perhaps one day will no longer respond to your triggers.
Signed,
~Simply Joy
Simply, Joy 