We are six months into this pandemic and people are still getting sick. I live in New York City, so many people I know and care for were diagnosed right at the beginning (my 86 year-old mother with dementia miraculously pulled through; my 90 year-old uncle did not). In NYC, we seem to be on a COVID-19 infection break (less than 1% testing positive for 30 days), but that is not the case throughout the rest of the country. Recently a good friend who lives in Middle America and had been forced to go back to work called to tell me she had tested positive. I wanted to do something for her, but was at a loss as to what they could be.
All the gifts I have sent friends to cheer them up – chocolates, bath bombs, books, flowers – just seemed wrong. I knew she would be lying in bed with a runny nose taking her temperature every hour, if she was lucky. What do you get for that?
So I went online and found a get well gift basket of tea, chicken soup, cough drops, tissues, fake flowers in a vase, etc. I had no idea something like that existed. I immediately sent it to her via Amazon Prime and it was there during her entire 14 day-recovery.
But I also sent her a text every morning when I woke up asking how she was doing.
She pulled through, and is back at work, and donating her plasma to save others, but the whole experience made me realize that I barely knew how to be there for her from a distance.