What life has become

David McLemore has been self-isolating since his wife died in November

My friend David McLemore used to be a reporter and now blogs in his dotage. He lost his wife last November to cancer and has been self-isolating ever since, though he was kind enough to venture out for dinner when I visited San Antonio a couple weeks ago. I asked him to write about grief, not knowing that we would all soon be in his position, sitting alone at home, thinking about death, and wondering what life has become. He was kind enough to offer this up. -J.S.

The phone rang at 8:20 a.m Friday, March 9, 2018, scaring the dogs. We don’t know many people who would call that early. Ginny answered. It was her rheumatologist with news that the routine blood test she had three days earlier showed she had leukemia. Less than two years later on November 27, 2019, she was dead. 

Ginny is Virginia Messec,  my wife and partner for 43 years, mother of our two adult sons, former newspaper editor, and kindest, fiercest warrior I know. She had wrestled with rheumatoid arthritis for three decades. Three days after that phone call, she met her new oncologist for a bone marrow biopsy that confirmed AML -- acute myeloid leukemia -- and that immature white blood cells were filling her veins at a stunning rate. 

She began chemo two days later at Southwest Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, launching a 20-month odyssey of repeated chemo, hospitalizations, office visits, blood transfusions, and diminishing return on hope.  It was a long battle and she fought on. She made it clear to her doctor that she was not going to die in the hospital. And by mid-November, he said the decision was hers to make. The oncology nurses across the eighth floor rushed to tell her goodbye. Two weeks later, November 27, 2019, the night before Thanksgiving, she died at home on her terms under hospice care, surrounded by her two dogs and me. She was 64.

Death is a part of life, they say. We knew for some time that traditional chemo wasn’t working and the oncologist hat trick of a variety of new oral chemo drugs had hit a wall. So, yes, cancer sucks, all the more so because it requires a valiant effort to fight it, even though it is winning. Ginny’s mantra as it evolved over those 20 months was, ‘You live,  until you don’t.’ What doesn’t become clear until later is how big a hole death tears out of the heart of the survivors. Grief is highly subjective but it can be a staggering weight to carry, especially if you don’t have the women who helped carry all the other burdens a life together can bring. 

So, you look through old photos, you expect any moment now to hear laughter, hear her call out from the other room. And you decide there’s really not that much of interest outside your door. Favorite taco places or restaurants have no appeal. That’s where you went with her. Life is something you shared. Friends and family are thoughtful and mean well and keep tabs on you and you smile and thank them and watch some more NCIS reruns. 

That’s what my life had become. And then, the world caught up with me, thanks to a new strain of so-far untreatable virus and a global pandemic. As Covid-19 runs through the world like metastatic cells set  free, the government struggles to find some way to limit the damage and eventually settles on doing nothing. States and cities order schools and restaurants closed, public gathering and sports events shuttered, and workers sent home. And people discover “social distancing” as a new way of life. 

Facebook, Twitter, and the myriad outlets of social media glow with the heat of ever-increasing suggestions on how to live apart from the world. Advice gushes out from computer screens on what books to read, what to watch on Netflix or Hulu, what do you do with the kids, how to shop for groceries online or order pizza from DoorDash. And mostly, what the hell do you do with all those hours in a day? 

Initially, it all meant little to me. This is how I’ve spent my days the last four months. Not to denigrate the efforts to reduce the impact. Covid-19 is a scary, deadly virus. As of March 18, it has already killed 8,885 people worldwide and 122 in the US. But this separation from the world was already my life. 

And I liked it. I watch TV, play with the dogs, and read. But mainly, I am remembering Ginny. I miss her terribly and continually. I truly believe that as long as we remember the dead, they never truly die. 

Yes, that is grief speaking. But it keeps the darker mist of grief at bay. And it reminds me of Ginny’s credo that life is for living. It is my pause button. 

But it also connects me to the land of the living. Suddenly, I am joined to a world in self-exile. Together, we now parse our days, keeping tuned to the news of what gains the virus makes as it marches across the globe, counting the death toll, checking to see if it grows closer and wonder at the fumbling efforts of our government to deal with it. 

We regularly check our temperatures and wonder if that runny nose and allergic cough is developing into something more sinister. And ask when the promised tests will be available. We maintain contact with others via social media to gripe, to joke and to offer what help we can. within the frame of social media to see how others are doing, how they are coping and relay our efforts to deal with the terrifying boredom. 

For the first time for many of us, we truly know we are not alone. We live and are in this tiny boat together, struggling through rough seas to find our way to shore. And there is hope in that.

And perhaps that’s what we all need right now -- a  moment to pause, to reflect, and remember who we are and who we love. And how we should live. And right now, separating from the world is necessary that we stay well and keep alive. 

That’s Ginny’s gift to us all: You live, until you don’t.

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What I’m reading

I grew up reading alternative weeklies. Thanks to the coronavirus, my children will not.

Here’s what Le Monde learned from Tinder. (That sound you heard was C.B. clicking on that link.)

Harvard, Stanford, and the AARP studied whether social isolation had physical consequences. Here’s what they found.

Study: “On average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group.”

What is it like to live through the dying of an empire?

Last Word: My aunt Fay is one of my favorite artists, and my uncle Ron made her a nice website to make up for her show in Iowa getting coronacancelled.

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What I’m watching

Everyone’s watching stuff. I finally saw the end of Marc Maron’s set that predicted the pandemic, S.N.V. is digging Picard hard (I’ve asked her to write about it), and we and the boys watched The Upside last night and were pleased and satisfied with our choice.

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What I’m listening to

Salim Nourallah has a nice touch, light but propelled. His music moves of it’s own accord, inexorably. I’ve always paid more attention to his chord progressions than his lyrics, though, until “This Doesn’t Feel Like Peace, Love, or Understanding,” which uses political imagery to describe the dissolution of a relationship. It’s obviously a response, of sorts, to Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” which was overtly a political song, and though literally Nourallah’s is about romantic love, it’s impossible to avoid hearing his song as another metaphor. Is the breakdown of our public structures like a breakup?

Pretty song, though. J.S.

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