I’ve Spent a Lot of Time Afraid.

Both of my boys had somehow escaped COVID – until now.

Dylan lived in Tennessee for the vast majority of the pandemic, which means he went unmasked and didn’t care. He believed he’d be fine as long as he didn’t bring home the virus to his aging relatives. Two years went by with Dylan regularly spitting into microphones used by other singers, going to concerts and house parties and shows, and Dylan did not get the virus.

Then he went to Italy and came home with COVID. He was the only one in our group who contracted the virus, and we have no idea why, except that he was always the one person who didn’t have a mask when it was required.

Shane took a different approach. After more than a year of online school, he wore a mask at school every day. When the mask requirements were lifted at school, well into his senior year, he still wore a mask. He took it off to eat, far away from other people. He was careful and meticulous.

When he went to concerts, which was rare and recent, he stood in the back of the room away from the crowds. When we got a notification from the state telling him that someone at a concert he’d attended had contracted COVID, Shane was concerned, but not much. He’d spent the evening in front of an open door, wearing a mask.

For graduation, I stupidly bought Shane two tickets to a huge metal festival in Ohio, so that he and Dylan could enjoy four days of unlimited music. They stayed in an Air BnB and drove back and forth to the festival every day, even when it poured down rain on the last day. Because they were outdoors, in spite of the crowds, they didn’t bother masking. No one bothered masking.

Shane got COVID at the festival.

Both boys are doing fine now; they say it’s like a bad cold, but the first two days were pretty rough for both of them. I think back on my first few days with the same virus, different variant, before vaccinations were widespread and when desperation was everywhere, and I think the boys did pretty well.

I’ve spent a lot of time afraid of COVID. I was worried about Dylan, about his reactive airways disease. I was worried about myself because of my autoimmune disorder. I was worried about Shane on the day that he slept for 36 hours. I am still worried about my husband, who is older and hasn’t had it. Yet.

But I am less afraid now than I was before. I am hopeful that those who want to live will be able to be vaccinated, that the severity of the disease will lessen to such an extent that we can live with it, the way we live with a cold and the flu.

I don’t want to live with it; I want it gone. But what choice do we have?

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