My pandemic story began about a week before my lockdown: the indoor pool closed. As some of you know, I used to swim half an hour (heads up breast stroke, keeping my eyes out of the water) plus some exercises designed to help my sciatica. It was pretty effective. It still hurt to walk too far but I could walk as much as I needed to, to and from the subway, around the Art Gallery, over the bridge from Bloor to Danforth, where I shopped. I gave up my car when I moved back to Toronto from Muskoka because TTC is very efficient. I had my groceries delivered, picking up forgotten or unavailable items on Danforth in between deliveries.
You have to know all this because you have to understand what a shock I suffered and how the departure from my routine fractured my life. I had been living alone for over thirty years.
Other people, in lockdown, also had to get used to living twenty-four-seven at close quarters with partners or family (children?), that is, if they were lucky and could work at home rather than lose a job. Life, as we knew it, changed suddenly and drasticallyI. I have four adult children, two girls and two boys, in that order.The girls live in Vancouver and Boston respectively. The youngest boy-is challenged, and lives (in normal times) in an apartment program under the aegis of Community Living,Toronto, with an apartment mate selected for him by CL. He is quite high-functioning, as they say, but he needs more help than he thinks he does, or than the rest of the family thinks he does. On March 20 my older son gave us the same notice—12 hours or less—that victims of a flood or a fire receive: ordered one evening to get out (or in my case, to make room for and receive a guest)—for a an indefinite period of time. We still don’t know how long it will be.
I couldn’t go and help Matt pack, not allowed to go on TTC, no drive offered because John was in lockdown, working at home. (Still is.) I made lists of clothes and food and equipment and phoned them to Matt, and kept phoning until a staff person from Community Living picked him up with his stuff and his medications, and brought him to me. He has since picked up Matt’s mail, more clothes as the season changed, and prescription renewals. Also his bank book, bank card and cheque book and his Presto card (useless). His passport of course is irrelevant and stays in his bed table drawer.
Again, I go into some detail, setting the stage for what was to follow. ( Who knew?) I developed a headache, fortunately before Matt arrived or I’d have blamed him. More persistent pain was to follow, also not caused by Matt but by the pool closure.
This isn’t amusing. I’ll think about it tomorrow.