How could I have known what was to come the day the drive over the mountain, through the Hudson Valley byways, past acid-green trees with leaves by the thousands, each no bigger than a housefly, would herald the onset of a springtime of fear?
It was a day to be outside, smelling air still tinged by cold but promising the season to come, a season I took for granted would mean new life. Had I known I would be spending the next many months inside, I might have made a better choice than to go to a casino, where nighttime happens during the day.
I heard about the virus, but in the beginning did not pay more than a modicum of attention. I took a slightly enhanced precaution at the casino, washed my hands every hour, and tried to avoid breathing on or being breathed upon by other living humans. Hundreds of people touch the exact place on each machine before their good or bad luck leads them to another game. Intermittently, they eat, drink, and go to the bathroom, just like always.
Before the Covid pandemic, I enjoyed being around the type of person who frequents the Resorts World Casino in Monticello. It’s an otherworldly dark environment where the people are shadows, while the machines seem alive with promise. Women dressed as cocktail waitresses, cleavages abounding, served alcohol in the morning to old folks, some in wheelchairs, others with walkers.
A woman who sat next to me asked if I was worried about the virus. She told me her 92-year-old grandmother, a diabetic in a wheelchair, was also in the casino. “But she is wearing a mask,” she said.
At that moment, I did not foresee in only a few weeks that a different diabetic grandmother who prayed to Allah in my living room would be an early casualty of Covid. She had come up from Brooklyn , a burly black woman in her late sixties, full of life energy. She was living with her granddaughter, who worked as a receptionist in a New York City hospital.
Three weeks later the virus materialized all over the world, especially in Queens and Brooklyn, often in hospital settings. I had a feeling the grandmother would die. When the phone rang at 6:45 a.m. on April 16, the words that tumbled from my lips were, “I had a feeling …”
The granddaughter was not shocked or offended by my response. I suppose she was also expecting her beloved grandmother might contract the disease, since she was part of the demographic most at risk — older, black, from a hot spot, with co-morbidities.
No familial person who knew and loved her was allowed to visit during the death vigil. Only six family members were permitted to attend her funeral. Some realities are so hard to bear and seem so far away, they are impossible to comprehend. How many of us hearing these stories or seeing family members interviewed on the news stations are brave enough to imagine this happening to our own loved ones?
I tried to put myself in the granddaughter’s position. I couldn’t handle the horror of it beyond a few seconds of frightening fantasy. Separating ourselves, until it touches us directly is often the only way to cope with a catastrophe and face each day of seemingly ordinary continuing life. Intermittently we eat, drink and go to the bathroom just like always.
Resorts World Casino at Monticello reopened with very specific carefully crafted precautions. I have been stuck in the house for almost nine months. Even if it is medically safe to go, what if I get into a car accident on my way to such a frivolous activity and hurt those closest? I asked my daughters for their permission, which they reluctantly gave me. Fear, like a finger-shaking parent, has become an authoritative force in my life.
I got as far as the hairpin turn on Route 44-55 before I turned around and went home. “This too shall pass,” and before it does the most loving way we can care for each other is to stay home whenever possible.
Join the family! 
