Today marks the end of what has seemed like the longest week of my life. Only just hearing that somebody has been diagnosed with corona, consumes your mind with feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear but let me tell you, those words are a huge understatement for what goes on inside your head when members of your family test positive. Your heart races and you feel suffocated even in your safest place, your home. It takes every ounce of will within you to see any silver lining after that moment.

20th May 2020 

I woke up at my usual time and barged into my mom’s room. She had her mask on and told me to keep a distance, just to be safe. She had a cough and mild fever. I didn’t think too much of it because mama has multiple health issues on her own. 

21st May 2020

The day went by with nothing but paranoia and unease in the atmosphere as mama remained sick, while we still practiced “distancing” to some extent. As evening approached, my parents decided to go get her tested, again, just to be safe. At this point, everyone seemed to be in a state of denial and focused on keeping their composure, except for my 9 y/o brother, who was too young to process all of his feelings. He burst into tears right after mama left. It is hard to console someone when deep down, the same fear makes you sick in the pit of your stomach. Regardless, every bit of hope was gently handed out to him until he felt much better. 

That night was spent in apprehension and uncertainty, not knowing whether to hope for the best or just assume the worst in order to prepare yourself for it. Nevertheless, we made desperate pleas of help to God.  

22nd May 2020

The restlessness and the fear of the unknown lasted until it was replaced by definite horror. The results were back and my mother had tested positive for COVID-19. Innumerable questions consumed my thoughts. What would happen now? Who else could have gotten infected? Would we be able to protect our grandparents? All of these unanswered questions became the center of my justified fears and worries. The words “people of any age with serious underlying medical conditions might be at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19” played and replayed in my head like an old cassette. Obviously, this was the case for many at my house: a mother with high blood pressure, cervical spondylosis and a benign tumor in the right kidney; a father having recently gone through angioplasty, yet still a chain smoker; a grandfather, eighty years of age, with diabetes, dementia, and a heart bypass; and lastly a grandmother, seventy-eight, a hypertensive heart patient who had also gone through angioplasty.  The whole situation seemed like an endlessly long tunnel with cataclysmic horrors at the end of it.

23rd May 2020 

My phone’s ringtone woke me up from a rather disturbed night’s sleep, if at all. It was mama. She wanted all of us to go get tested as soon as possible. We filled up the car as usual, except the only difference now was that we were a family of 5, instead of 6. My family was fragmented; I felt incomplete. Upon reaching the hospital, the medical swab kits were brought to us. The swab, delicate as it was, felt like a weapon being stabbed up my throat and then my nose. After we came back home, my grandparents had to go through the same horrid ordeal.

The house felt strange. There were so many unfamiliar feelings and thoughts. With mama locked into her room, isolating, the only way we four siblings could sit together and comfort each other was, with masks strapped on tight, to the point where it was difficult to breathe. It seemed as though each one of the family members could be fatal for the other. 

4 weeks later:

It’s very natural to lose track of time when your world suddenly comes crashing down. I started writing one week into this hitch. Now that it has been a month, my state of mind is very different compared to before. As painful as it is to relive these memories and write about them, it is absolutely crucial to have this reach as many people as possible as a warning of how just a little precaution could save you from an irreversible and insufferable loss. 

After all the results were back, a couple of us had tested positive including my mother, my sister, my brother, and most concerning of all, my grandfather. Immediately we were separated from them at a time that they needed us the most, but that is what this disease entails. Everything was under control until my sister contracted a lung-related disease in which she started having seizures and breathing problems. Mama, being a doctor herself, treated her at home. Our house was no less than a corona ward at a hospital. Everything was lined up: steroid injections, oxygen cylinders, pulse oximeters, BP apparatus, spirometer, etc. Simultaneously, my nana’s health starting deteriorating with a severe cough and fever, he started developing severe back pains, 8 days after his diagnosis. My mother tirelessly worked like a robot, alternating between both, desperately trying to save them. Unfortunately, we humans have no control over whose life we want to save, even if we’d exchange ours for theirs. Neither did she. 

My grandfather passed away on the 31st of May. We knew it would be the last day of the month but we could never have anticipated that it would also be his last. It is believed that the transition between this life and the next is excruciatingly painful but that wasn’t what we witnessed. He went so easy, without a single sigh of pain. Perhaps God listens to the prayers of his favorite people. He was gone but a void was left behind that still consumes us whole. I wish I could tell him just how sorry we were for not listening to him when he told us to be more careful. You never truly realize what it means to live without someone until they’re gone, forever. So what do you do then? What do you do about their clothes hanging at the back of the door? How do you ever enter their room seeing their side of the bed empty? How do you mourn when you don’t have a shoulder to cry on? What do you do about their phone ringing that they’ll never be on the receiving end of? The answer is: you just learn to live with it. You fold away the clothes and you pick up the calls and break the devastating news. Life has its way of continuing. It does not stop and wait for you to get back up. Just when we thought the worst was over, my grandmother tested positive too. The details of the sights that I saw will forever be engraved into my brain as vivid memories that are never forgotten. Life had beat us black and blue. We could not grieve the loss of who was gone because life incessantly kept us on our feet. We were out of breath, yet we could not cancel out the possibility of losing someone else too. 

To everyone who is currently going through or went through some form of the same thing: I want to tell you that you are so brave for enduring this hardship with so much strength. All my hopes and prayers go out to you! 

To everyone lucky enough to have been spared from this ordeal: keep safe. It’s out there and it’s REAL. With it spreading like a wildfire now, we need to be more careful than ever. All of this goes without saying though but what I really want to ask you to do is a simple gesture to show them you care before it’s too late: a hug.

By Saniya Waseem