Alone. Together.

Every night at 8 pm, our neighborhood has a social distancing party. Saturday’s was an especially good party–it was Mike’s first.

Two weeks ago today Mike was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago with the COVID 19 virus. Here are some things that happened at home while he was away:

• When I let my friend Jamie (yes, the same Jamie who was driving me to school visits before the pandemic hit) know, she rallies her book club and some old college friends to help.
• Each would choose a night and charge a meal for me at one of our small Printers Row restaurants taking to-go orders now (ordering directly means restaurants do not have to share proceeds with delivery companies).
• Neighborhood friends volunteer to pick up my dinners and deliver them to our condo
• I eat well.
• “It takes a village,” I text to one of those local volunteers to thank her for delivering a meal to me one night.
• ”And ours is a good village!” she texts back.
• I miss Mike.
• I get hooked on audio books by Irish author Maeve Binchy. The sweet lilting accents carry me far away, stories are playful. Kind of like Louise Penny books, but they take place in Dublin rather than Three Pines. And no one dies.
• Becoming more adept at using VoiceOver (the speech synthesizer that comes with every iPhone) to text and answer the phone when Mike calls, or when caring doctors, social workers, friends and family contact me to see how he’s doing.
• My part-time job moderating the blog for Easterseals National Headquarters (located in Chicago) continues, I am grateful, working from home, and, while distracted, I do what I can to devote my thinking brain to that work.
• I miss Mike.
• I set an alarm for 2:30 pm every day to listen to our governor and Illinois Department of Public Health Director give their daily update. Their honest and intelligent talks are comforting, and every once in a while the fabulous Mayor Lightfoot speaks at these, too.
• I miss Mike.
• Every night my longtime friend who is a doctor checks in with me, or I check in with her. She is working at one of the COVID testing sites and has sequestered herself from her family. Her COVID information helps me understand what Mike and I might be facing, and her friendship is sustaining.
• I join the 21st century and start carrying my iPhone wherever I go.
• Finish Quentins by Maeve Binchy. Starting her book Evening Class now.
• A box of treats — and a bottle of white wine! — arrives by UPS from my friend Jill, owner of the sensational cheese shop Marché” in Glen Ellyn.
• That’s when my nightly ritual begins: I pour a small glass of that wine every night at 8 p.m., open the window, get comfortable on the couch, nosh on Marché snacks and sip wine while listening to the nightly sing-along going on outside
• Somehow the days fly by.
• A box of unused masks and disposable gloves arrives here from my great-niece in Minneapolis, who took care of her mom (my niece Lynne), who was in hospice last year. The unused disposable gloves and masks were left over from that sad time — a bittersweet — yet extremely thoughtful and helpful — package
• Mike usually takes my Seeing Eye dog Luna out for her last “empty” of the day. Now I don a mask and disposable gloves every time I take her out, and, assuming bad guys are staying home during the pandemic, I am fearless when out with Luna after dark.
• Without being able to see, Unless people talk — or walk — loudly, it can be difficult to judge what six feet is. Luna and I do our best.
• When I hear the “ding” that tells me an elevator has arrived, I point that way, command “forward! And Luna leads me to the opening. “Anybody in here?” I ask. Not sure if the elevators here are even six feet wide, so if someone answers, I urge them to go ahead without us: I’m not pressed for time!
• Discovery: when wearing plastic disposable gloves, you can still feel the Braille dots in the elevator.
• I finish Evening Class by Maeve Binchy. On to her novel Heart and Soul.
• I miss Mike.
• Day 7 of Mike’s hospital stay, and Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens contacts us to see if Mike and I would be willing to do phone interviews with her. ” I do think your story is a really important one to get in front of readers,” she writes, adding that she thinks it illustrates the complexities that this virus presents for different families. “It also emphasizes how problematic it is that testing is sometimes hard to find and the results take so long to get back, leaving families in limbo.”
• We both are willing.
• Heidi interviews Mike in his hospital room that morning by phone.
• I am interviewed separately by phone at home.
• Photographers not allowed in hospital, so Tribune photographer comes to Printers Row, meets me outside to follow Luna and me on her afternoon “empty” walk.
• Heidi works fast. Her column about Mike is published by 5:30 pm that same afternoon.
• I miss Mike.
• In our evening phone call that night, Mike and I marvel at how Heidi Stevens does it: the column is beautifully written, accurate, and touching.
• Word is out now. Mike is in the hospital with COVID 19, and I am home alone with Luna.
• I miss Mike.
• Okay, enough of those Irish books. I start Kill “em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by writer, musician, and national Book Award winner James McBride — he grew up near James Brown, and the book is fun to read. Now reading Slam by Nick Hornby
• In her column, Heidi referred to Jamie’s dinner delivery group as my “meal train,” and friends, family and memoir-writing students near and far start asking me if they can hop on board.
• “Sure!” I respond, suggesting they buy gift cards in my name at local restaurants.
• Many of them do. Thank you all!
• I grant Jamie’s group a furlough from the meal train and start phoning local restaurants who’ve received those gift cards to order my meals.
• Neighborhood volunteers continue picking up and delivering those meals to our condo, and, I think, appreciate the opportunity to check in at the restaurant to-go windows and see how their friends on staff are doing.
• I continue eating well.
• I miss Mike,
• I start ending my email and text responses to all the friends and family members who contact me after reading the Heidi Stevens column asking that, “If you pray, please pray for us. If you think, send good thoughts our way.”
• They do.
• It starts working. Mike getting better
• So it dawns on me. Yes, Mike has been away for two weeks now, but I haven’t been here alone at all: all these people thinking about us reminds me. I’m one of the luckiest people I know
• Over the weekend, Mike is discharged after three-day hotel stay. Clear of COVID 19, he can come home.
• He does.
• We hug.

If you missed it, grab a Kleenex and read this beautiful post Mike wrote about his experiences for his Mondays with Mike column earlier this week