Shelter in Place Day 31: Forget Me Not

San Francisco, California

A small patch of Brunnera bloomed this year for the first time, another miracle in what I’ think I’m going to forever call the Covid Spring. The flowers look so much like forget-me-nots I have trouble remembering their true name. (Wikipedia says that one of Brunnera’s nicknames is ‘the great forget-me-not,’ so I’m not the only one confused). I’ve been trying for several weeks to capture this quiet flower, but my limited macro skills have prevented me from getting more than one or two stems in focus. This one, taken yesterday as the flowers begin to drop, is f(19) and it's still not right.

My calendar reminded me this morning that today is/was my scheduled hip replacement - a surgery that has now been postponed ever farther into spring. Or summer. Or fall. Who knows? I have waited almost a year for the procedure, but I’m not about to hobble into a hospital right now, even if it was up to me. 

It’s easy with our obsession about all things pandemic to forget that there are many among our family, friends and neighbors for whom the Covid-19 virus is “only” an added risk to procedures that are not, cannot be ‘elective’ and postponed.My friend and neighbor enters the hospital here every week for tests to gauge whether his anti-rejection medication for a liver transplant continues to play nice with the meds for a chronic infection they’re trying to keep at bey. He’s terrified, and rightly so. Another awaits his brother’s biopsy for throat cancer. Yet another, who is undergoing aggressive chemotherapy, admitted that she’s almost grateful for the blanket quarantine because she’s not the only one who’s scared and isolated. “It’s selfish, I know,” she told me sheepishly, “but cancer is such a lonely disease.”

My point here is not to compare my own minor misfortune with others, but to remember, very simply, that life goes on. As does illness, fear, and suffering. And whether they’re related directly to the pandemic or not, such serious maladies are made worse logistically, emotionally, and physically by the virus’ presence among us. So l don’t want to forget the ones who bravely ‘elect’ to face the risks and keep on going. I wish them courage and send my love.