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Spring Break, COVID-Style
“Mom! My ears are leaking!”
The incredulity in my daughter’s voice was matched by our shock when she sent the family videos of liquid oozing out of her ear.
That was early last spring. While the political heads debated COVID’s legitimacy, my daughter had been seriously infected with the virus. Leaking ears were one of the weird side effects she suffered. As a musician living alone in New York city she faced the full brunt of the illness; fever, chills, aches, loss of energy and eventually loss of income, as COVID slowed the entire city to a crawl. Meanwhile like most people, our family get-togethers for spring, summer and Christmas were cancelled.
A year later, my older daughter and her entire family tested positive for the virus. It was passed on to her parents by my rambunctious seven-year-old granddaughter who was ‘sick’ for less than 24 hours while her parents languished with aches, pains, fever, and low energy for almost two weeks. Whereas her sister was forced out of work in a large city, my older daughter, a teacher in South Florida was being pressured to work from home. While still feverish, the school arranged for her to teach virtually from home by sending her the school computer.
“Mom, a coworker came by to drop off my school laptop. She texted me to let her in the gate of the complex. By the time I opened my…
