Delivery and Pickup

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?

I work for doctors as their nanny. They had to continue to work during the pandemic. My schedule didn’t change. I show up at 7:15 and stay until 5:30. Preschool was cancelled so I had the boys all day. They are sweet most of the time and fun to be around. It kept what could have been a very lonely time from being so lonely. We didn’t wear masks together since they were so young. Their mom would come in and shower in the back room, changing her clothes as not to bring Covid in the house because she had patients who would come in despite knowing they had Covid putting her, the entire staff and all their families at risk. The dad contacted a mild case of Covid early on but had to quarantine for 3 weeks. None of us caught it.

I was unable to go and see my mother who was 83 at the time. I went over 2 years without seeing her. I did risk getting sick to go see my daughters, SIL and grandkids at Christmas. The thought of being alone over Christmas was too much to bear. I did wear a mask if I had to get out.

I stopped going grocery shopping which I didn’t do often anyway. When I was suffering from severe depression I had switched to pickup and I just did pickup all the time during covid.

While life changed dramatically for a lot of people, my life changed very little. I think I may have had covid the end of February 2020 but nothing had been said about it at that time. Since then I have never contracted covid.

The pandemic brought out the worst of people. They became ruder, pushier and greedy. People hoarded basic necessities because they would never dream of doing without or with less.

It has made me aware of how unprepared we are as a nation and how unprepared I am as an individual for another pandemic. The Trump administration handled it so poorly and lies were spread, so normally intelligent people were duped into believing falsehoods, just like they believe the lies about vaccines now. My friend’s young adult brother died because they refused the vaccination, believing the lies.

I pray there is not another pandemic in my lifetime, my children’s lifetime and my grandchildren’s lifetime but I know that is unlikely.