This is the year that was, and oh, how hard it was!
One of the most famous sentences in literature is the opening of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina (1878): "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
I think that may be true of our present Covid19 families, the ever-growing number of fatalities and the continuing upheaval in all our lives. Each famiiy is facing different problems; expectations are shattered—and so is sleep—while familiar routines are all awry; work (if any) habits have changed; relationships shifted. One cause, but drastic, mind-blowing consequences.
There is no normal. Will there ever be “normal” again? Life will never be the same.
And so with me and my family. I’ll try to keep my report brief and detached. This is the year that was.
After living alone for 30 years, I received an unexpected house mate—my 59-year-old challenged son. Matt is what is called high-functioning and he keeps surprising me with some of his abilities. Nevertheless it was hard on both of us. He had to live with a crotchety old woman, in pain (and growing worse) with her sciatica, and I had to live with a slow, easy-going young man (thank goodness, for he is incredibly patient with me). His older brother phoned me the evening of March 19 and told me he thought Matt should live with me for our mutual safety—iike the next day. We had less time than people are given to vacate their homes during a forest fire, and I couldn’t be there. I no longer have a car and TTC, if could walk that far to a station, was unsafe. I made a list and phoned Matt to tell him what to bring.
Matt is under the care of Community Living Toronto. Irshad, his social worker (caregiver? counsellor?), picked him up the morning of March 20 and brought him here to live with me. He hasn’t been home since. He leaves an apartment mate, chosen by CL, who has remained alone this entire time. Matt still pays his share of the rent and phone bill and he phones Jeffrey twice a day so we can see how he is doing. We had him for outdoor picnics in my apartment Courtyard when the weather permitted. Irshad is our go-between, bringing Matt his essential mail and picking up more clothes as the months go on on. Many of them didn’t fit. Matt and Jeffrey were both far too fat. I had finally enrolled Matt in a Weight Watchers’ program only 4 or 5 weeks before and he had lost 5 pounds, down to 205. I put us both on Weight Watchers (I could pass an exam), and the two of us started losing weight steadily, week by week. We both lost weight: Matt forty-seven and I forty-three pounds.
I never intended to lose so much, but I couldn’t seem to stop. My increasing pain must have had something to do with it. I’m bony now, and wrinkled. I weigh what i weighed on my wedding day but the weight is distributed differently, not as attractive. When the swimming pools shut down in Toronto, the pools (indoor and outdoor) in my apartment building also closed. I swim—used to swim—every morning and do exercises in the water and that kept me just ahead of my sciatica. Without that, I went downhill on wheels. I wish they had been wheels. My legs and hips and spine made me stagger.
This is too long. I’m telling you more than you care to know. I’ll leave it now and try for something shorter. Tomorrow.
After all…
…we have all the time in the world.