Saturday, I dressed in makeup, hair, Spanx (not planned, but necessary unfortunately. Thanks, sourdough!) and funeral wear, then zoomed my dad’s memorial. It turned out more or less as expected, drama not entirely absent, but at low, simmering levels that were easy to ignore. The hardest part (for me) was ending the call, as there was no gradation into normalcy, that slow dispersal where the show is concluded but people slowly gather in groups and talk, or the move from a darkened church interior to the outdoors, or get a bad cup of coffee and eat a stale cookie. After a bit of nervous laughter about people not wanting to be the first to leave, I told Middle to ‘pull the plug’ in a joking way, and she said, “OK” and then I was staring at a HOST HAS ENDED THE MEETING screen.

To obtain that separation, my husband and I got in the car and took our fancy asses to In N Out drive thru.

Part of me thought it unwise to go out and risk contamination, but I’d momentarily squandered my last fuck when Little decided not to speak at Dad’s thing (there had been rumors she might say some angry stuff about him). Which resulted in an awkward zoom silence after pretty much all adults in attendance told a little story or recited a prayer or poem. My kids even showed up and stayed.

It seemed unclear as to the group’s responsibility whether to nudge Little because maybe she needed encouragement/permission to say something ugly but true, or maybe we were supposed to leave her alone, as she’s an adult who can make her own decisions. Ultimately, I didn’t nudge her because I figured a) I’m not the judge of what’s right for her and b) it’s Dad’s memorial, and I felt petty about making a drama of dragging a story out of her, thereby somehow giving her pain a bigger stage than anyone else’s, including his.

When husband and I got on to the highway, it was as surprisingly busy. Much as it would normally be this time of year, at the cusp of tourist season.

We laughed, exchanging a look suggesting that perhaps we’d been Truman Show’d, tales of Corona virus pumped into our personal bubble for purposes of experimentation, because it looked like business as usual out in the rest of the world.

At In N Out, we pulled into a literal double line of cars circling the restaurant to get food. Through the building’s large glass windows, employees were packed in close together. It felt really bad to be part of a scenario in which teenage workers were getting exposed to so many people for minimum wage. But also everyone is saying to support businesses by dining out. I had guilt because we should’ve chosen a local restaurant. But then I was like, why? Are those locals better than the locals working at In N Out? And obviously, the right answer was probably that they should be paid to stay at home, but they aren’t, and so am I exposing them or am I helping them pay bills? Plus, honestly, I was looking forward to comfort food, even though it might be a plague burger, which brought me full circle to the first anxiety about teenagers forced into risky work just to make me food.  Finally I was fully like, FUCK IT. I don’t know how to care anymore. Every way is wrong.

Sunday, I had my first anxiety dream that I was in a grocery store and forgot to wear a mask. So long Underpants/Final exam dream! We are upgrading to 2020, please hold.

So when I dragged my exhausted ass out of bed Monday morning and saw a flurry of headlines about Breakthrough Studies Showing Quick! Fix! Solutions! To! Covid! I felt ridiculously happy. I was probably legit high from the unexpected promise of good news, and immediately forwarded a link to the primary source scientific paper to my siblings and mother, and found myself quite awake for the first time in months. I did a little dance in the kitchen while waiting for my second cup of coffee. Hope!

When I returned to reread the article, Little had sent a quizzical, “Cool, Thanks!” response to my FW, which seemed like it could be an honest cool, thanks! if she was busy and headed out the door on her way to work. But also tugged at my insides, because Cool Thanks! is how I sign off when some gullible relative FW:FW:FW some bullshit they probably got directly from some Kremlin funded wackado facebook site. Beyond this ambivalent uneasiness at Little’s response, there was another layer that her Cool Thanks! was actually, “Fuck off for not encouraging me to say whatever I was going to say at the memorial. You want me interested in your stuff when you don’t support mine? COOL THANKS.”

While I was worrying this bit, being honest with myself (Yes, it’s moral and proper to care for others in this exhausting time, No I don’t want to deal with anyone’s drama, I have my own thank you, how dare Little be annoyed at me for being annoyed at her for needing support!) My husband took a closer look at the scientific paper and in dribs and drabs pointed out how the author of the paper wasn’t associated with any university. And they didn’t have an MD or PhD behind their name. And the paper was their singular publishing credit. And all the news articles touting their findings had circular links back to this one self-published study. And if the findings were so solid, why wasn’t anyone peer reviewing the findings? Oh, and hey, here’s a bit where the author is interviewed, and it seems like perhaps they are trying to sell something.

I was so embarrassed and sad. I had to send out a retraction of my FW, knowing that I had become That Relative who forwards conspiracy theory bullshit. Then I curled up on the couch and cried for a really long time. My husband came over and I put my head in his lap, and he stroked my hair and handed me kleenex and I just cried for a really. long. time.

Finally, he said something that made me feel better. “You know, the Spanish Flu killed lots of people. But it went away by itself. Nobody made a vaccine or cured it, it just eventually ended. And after that, there was the Roaring Twenties.”

And it made me feel better that even though this is bad, and might become substantially worse, in one way or another, it will pass.