“It Wasn’t Until …,” a memoir by Beth Uznis Johnson. On becoming essential during Covid-19.
“Even though the facility had kept the virus out of the building so far, the pandemic was killing my dad.” The author with her father, just days before he died. The first time I saw my father at his memory care facility, after ten weeks of Covid-19 lockdown, he sat at the breakfast table, slumped in his...
“I want everyone to know what’s really happening on the front lines”: video from Jane Soyka’s Covid-19 hospital room.
Jane survived Covid-19. Her roommate, Elida, did not. “I‘m not going to start the blame game … except to blame the government for sabotaging the CDC and science.” Stills from Jane’s video. Editors’ Note: Violinist Jane Soyka lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Covid-19 spiked dramatically in November. Her story shows how quickly symptoms can go from mild...
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Desperate times, new measures: Broad Street’s Pandemonium Blog.
We feel the need to do something. We make masks, we donate money, we protest and demonstrate … and still our spirits yearn for more. Solidarity and fellow-feeling, the companionship of … what we have, which is a computer screen, where most of us are glued all day and night. But there are people...
“Wordless,” an essay by Susan Moldaw.
All we can say at the end. “She rubs my knuckles and down each finger with even sweeps of her thumb, her other hand bent clawlike beside her face.” Orange Memorial Hospital. Photograph by Chad Hunt. The old woman lies in the fetal position in her hospital bed, breathing the slow, rhythmic sighs of death. She moans,...
“A Couple In,” a poem by Jenny Gillespie Mason.
Love at the end. “the two pulses stayed, mixed up, so much brighter …” A Couple In —– —–I am one of the two who all those years did not find much to repel the mixing of our pulses —– They stayed not as one firm rhythm —– —– —– but together in fits like happily neglected green...
