2020, A Season of Coping By Eleanor F.J. Gamarsh It was the first anniversary of becoming a widow. While grieving my circumstances, my heart did the atrial fibrillation dance, and I am thrown into pandemic isolation. As this new wrinkle occurred, I was in shock, and looking around, I wondered what was happening. My daughter, who is a nurse, explained things to me. But I needed time to comprehend and adjust. I was full of questions that summer of 2020. I questioned why my heart started misbehaving and I wondered how I was going to live with the condition. What is my life going to be like since I became eighty-seven at the end of the same week? What is life going to be like now that COVID-19 has caused a world sickness? That was more frightening to me than the fact that my heart had developed AFib and I could have a stroke, a fact I haven’t owned yet. While mulling over those questions swirling around inside me like a spinning lawn sprinkler, I kept doing most of the same morning routine I had been accustomed to for many years. In the beginning, my emotions see-sawed. I would look into the bathroom mirror in dismay over how much my self-view was being redesigned. My bedroom became my sanctuary, where I surrounded myself with books about writing. I fulfilled a longheld desire to work on unfinished needlework and sewing projects. I also gained so much pleasure listening to familiar works of classical music on my radio, ones I had enjoyed since childhood. And I still read the comics for a laugh a day. 40 | M AG A Z I N E N A M E PAGE 40
Still, occasionally there were many hours when the handwork or sewing just wasn’t satisfying. Some weekdays, regardless of my radio playing, I was overwhelmed with being alone. There were days when nothing really mattered, and I felt little joy or pleasure in anything. As the months of living with the silence and isolation added up, my emotions went flat. Then coping is simmered down to honoring the basics of keeping my living space in order. As time passed, I lost interest in communicating with anyone or I just felt no reason to speak at all. My words stayed locked up inside me, but the longing remained to have a conversation, especially in person. And then, when an opportunity appeared, I felt awkward and frustrated trying to find my words. Without a flow of conversation with others, I didn’t feel motivated to work on my book and my heart wept to remember how joyful I had been that spring evening when I sent the manuscript to my editor. For a while, I moved about my home with no sense of direction. I knew there were things I should have done, but I felt no impetus towards them. I thought I would put them off to some other day until necessity forces me to handle responsibility.
