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My Longest Day in 2020
Many people would love to erase the entire pandemic year 2020 from history. I sympathize with their perspective, if only for a handful of extremely stressful days, specifically Saturday, May 23.
On a bright, spring day, I planned to have lunch with my father. He was recuperating after being in a diabetic coma as COVID numbers began to spike in New York City. By the time I got home that evening, well after dinnertime, he had been readmitted to the hospital with a broken hip.
City parking regulations were relaxed in the early days of the pandemic. I found a spot around the corner, and stopped at Zabar’s to pick up food, including a portion of pastrami to have for lunch the following day. Admittance was severely limited due to social distancing and it took 15 minutes to get into the store.
My father’s apartment was a beehive of activity. He was serviced by a health aide. There was also a nurse attending to his wife, Pam, in the final stages of terminal cancer. Pam was 29 years younger than my father, and also two years younger than me. After 9/11, Pam volunteered at a food bank downtown that distributed meals to first responders. She began suffering from symptoms that turned out to be lung cancer. A protracted, non-invasive medical battle resulted in advanced, inoperable brain cancer. Her altruism became her untimely undoing.
