(part 1 here)
I don't recall how much I discussed my forced 2016 electoral choice with friend Spartacus... and at the moment am not supremely inclined to search for that among our 24 years' worth of email. I'm sure we took up the subject, though in brief, and I explained that my moral and ethical commitment (not merely religious commitment) to the sanctity of human life had brought me to where I could no longer support any political person or effort that ran counter to protecting human life at all its stages, regardless of how much my heart still lay with the Democratic party overall.
Our friendship continued; we were bigger than any differences and outlooks. That's friends from the heart... and increasingly too rare in our world.
Some three years after the election, I got a call from my sister Alicia, even more state lines away from me than Spartacus. Cammie, a dear friend of my sister and her immediate family, had recently passed away from cancer. As executors of her will, Alicia and her husband Levi now found themselves with an extra car... would I like it?
I certainly would! My Honda PoC was shedding oil and parts faster than I could cram scant $$ back into it to keep it moving. The car they offered was a near-pristine 2009 model that had seen very little use during Cammie's exclusive ownership, only a scant 9,000 miles over ten-plus years. Per Cammie's estate, her car wouldn't be free – but the purchase amount my sister named put it in my astonished reach. (I learned later that other family members chipped in further... which was all the more touching.) I would just have to find my way over some 450-ish miles to pick it up.
The car wasn't ready just then for me to get it, fortunately granting me time to stack up more shekels, and make plans for its retrieval. And then, come Spring 2020, Alicia let me know I could now drive up for the car.
At that point, though, thanks to (supposedly) some Chinese lab or farmers' market, the entire country was completely locking down, to the point where interstate travel was nearly illegal. After shutting down for two weeks, the medical practice where I work had come open again (with many restrictions and limitations to keep patients and staff safe), and I was issued papers showing I could travel on behalf of the practice.
Yet travel was still too dangerous to one's health – the death rate was climbing exponentially, and no one was out of danger's reach. I received both doses of the Moderna vaccine, and worked more on the travel plans. And no matter how I mapped it, the only practical one-day route to Alicia and Levi's home was right through the center of one of the nation's two biggest viral-hotspot metropolitan regions (e.g., there'd been word of mass graves, in the news).
It also would take me within rental-car honking-distance of Spartacus's tight-locked compound. He and I discussed this via email, but concluded, first, that the trip wasn't worth the risk to health; and, second, that it would not be safe for me to stop by, either – not for me, nor for his wife and kids. In fact, he very understandably and very strongly advised me against making the trip at all; I agreed – he has a good sense for practical and realistic matters. I'm more prone to wishful thinking, and more than once he's been the perfect litmus strip.
Over the next few months, things slowly began to lighten up, in terms of transportation and socially-distant interactions. Early on, my mother's nursing home had suspended all visits with family members – wisely; among its 100 or so patients, nineteen had caught and died from the virus. Administration there been very strict, and that had kept their patients' losses low... whereas another facility just a block from my and my mother's home had lost nearly seventy patients.
Mother's nursing home had limited the family interactions to virtual visits via Zoom, and visiting/chatting from outdoors, through the patients' windows, for a few minutes. We did both, mostly through Mother's window: brother Sarge and our other sister Mew, and some of the grandchildren, made avail of the opportunity, really lifting (Grand)Mother's spirit... and probably also that of the hard-working, PPE-laden staff assisting and sometimes translating.
Mother and I were both born just outside a colonial-era city... and Alicia and her family live just a few miles away from there. So in mid-July, a week after Mother's birthday, I let her know (through the window) that I would be driving up there the following weekend, to the city she (and I) had always loved, and wanted to return to. I saw her eyes grow really wide as she lay there in her bed: clearly she was pleased with the news, and agreed when I told her I wished she could come along with me. But I'd show her the car as soon as I'd get back, and we could drive right up there once it was completely safe.
Resting there in bed after her lunch, Mother's mood and focus on us were very good; the nurse/aide assisting us through Mother's window showed Sarge and me the book Mother had been reading the last couple days: Motherhood Is Murder, something right up the alley of her crime-story-loving maternal heart! So I'd be out of town that next weekend, not able to make my usual visit, though Sarge (and likely some other family members) would happily fill in and keep her entertained... and vice-versa.
I scheduled that next Friday and Monday off from work; I'd planned out ever step of my itinerary, including a one-night layover with Alicia and her family, before about-facing behind the wheel of new(er) car, with rental vehicle contractually dropped off. Interstate transport restrictions had been largely lifted, and I deemed I could make the trip safely with masks, prudence, inflexible social distance, thanatophobic caution, and a thick supply of sanitizing lotion and wipes... all of which I had in abundance.
I wouldn't detour en route and visit Spartacus's fortress, much though I'd like to see and BS with him again, and his family. So I didn't let him know I'd nonetheless be in their neighborhood, just en passant – what would be the point? I had a feel as well that he would regard the long drive as unwise, bordering on foolishly (even suicidally) stupid. He may well have been right... though, for the record, let me state that I did survive, returned with the car (RIP, Cammie; and thanks, Alicia), never contracting so much as a sniffle twixt Alicia's home and mine.
More later...
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