Dear Tricia

Dear Tricia,

I hardly know where to start. It’s mid May and the magnolias are in bloom everywhere you look. Your front yard flowers are out in force – I stopped one day last week to take pictures of them and thought how pleased you would be.

Not too long after you left us, the world we all knew and loved despite its flaws, more or less went to hell. A virus, nearly worthy of a Stephen King novel though I don’t think we knew it at the time, had been born in China and it took over the planet at startling and deadly speed, becoming a pandemic in no time at all. The experts and scientists and doctors who recognized and tried to warn us about the danger were silenced or ignored or simply dismissed and outshouted. We paid no more mind to them in the beginning then we are doing now. And it’s been a heavy price to pay. We went into lockdown at the end of March – schools were closed and all non-essential businesses were shut down. The CDC issued guidelines about what is called “Social distancing” which means staying 6 feet away from everyone, no gatherings of more than 10 people, disinfecting anything and everything you touch, wearing masks and gloves everywhere you do go, but most critically, staying home to try and slow the progress of the virus. It might even have worked if we’d taken it seriously but instead we opted to hoard – can you imagine your old Brookshire’s with empty shelves where toilet paper and paper towels used to be? Or them being completely out of bread? The “I got mine, fuck you” mentality spread like wildfire. Restaurants went to take out only and then to curbside delivery and then to closed. Doctors and hospitals were overwhelmed, the government announced that everyone would receive a “stimulus check”, a one time payment of $1200 and all kinds of programs were set up to loan money. Some had strings, some didn’t but in the best government tradition, the process was rife with corruption and cronyism. Huge hotel and restaurant corporations and republican donors got millions while actual small businesses got nothing. They’re still trying to figure out and fix that. Almost 2 months in from the shutdown and no one seems to quite know where all the money is. State unemployment agencies waived their look for work requirements and said everyone could apply – it took about a day and a half before Louisiana went under water. The last released unemployment figures were at just over 14%.

One of the oddest things was how pleasant the social service people continued to be – inept and unhelpful but relentlessly polite and nice. Newly created and established websites and portals malfunctioned at an astonishing rate and unless you were prepared to be on hold for an average of 2-4 hours, reaching anyone was impossible. There was and still is no way to track a claim of any kind. Uncertainty runs rampant.

Despite the death toll, a staggering number of people still believe it’s a hoax to hurt the president’s chances of re-election in November. Small but vicious and heavily armed mobs are storming state capitals, demanding their rights to get their hair cut or their nails done and threatening the lives of public officials in the name of freedom. And the president, you might ask – what is he doing? After spending months of denying the danger and lying through his teeth, the short answer is …….. nothing. Oh, he has his so called “press briefings” where he gets to brag about how well we’re doing and what a great job he’s done and of course he gets hateful and nasty with reporters unwilling to kiss his ring and storms out if they continue to press him. But every word out of his mouth is a lie – the numbers on testing, the fake cures he’s heard about and promotes, but mostly he wants us to know that none of it is his fault and he still knows best, not the doctors or the scientists or the World Health Organization or the CDC or the infectious disease specialists. His nightly twitter tirades are off the rails and his stupidity is a bottomless pit. I fully anticipate he’ll be re-elected. Neither he nor his republican cult followers give a damn how many will die. On the bright side, all he has is the economy and it’s gone sideways. It’s barely possible it may be enough to get his ass kicked. American lives don’t matter but profit does – he says so publicly and his fellow republicans back him up.

So here are in the middle of May and magnolias and no one is talking about anything except “re-opening”. The medical experts and researchers are warning it’s premature and that it will backfire but no one in power with the exception of a stray governor here or there is listening. The president is leading the charge and anyone who dares disagree is fired or reassigned or accused of disloyalty. In some cases, they’re just targeted for the malicious kind of sarcasm the president does so well. By the time he’s proven wrong, I fear so much damage will have been done and so many more people will have needlessly died or become infected that it will be too late. In many respects and for many people, America will be over,

Of course in the meantime, life goes on. I’m still going in to work for a couple of hours each day although technically the agency closed in March and there hasn’t been any work for weeks. Michael and I are both are both drawing unemployment and the business is relying on various emergency loans to stay afloat. We can’t re-open until the Catholic Center is available for classes and so far they haven’t been able to say when that will be. Some of our people are still managing to make their payments, some are not, one or two have dropped out but most seem to understand that we’re doing the best we can do under the circumstances. We’re planning on make up classes through the summer if the quarantine is lifted and Michael refuses to give up on a December show. Time will tell.

In other news…….Melody found a great home for Lily. I’d have given my right arm to be able to take her but it’d have been a disaster. Rochelle has volunteered to take both my dogs if anything happens to me. I haven’t heard from Lindsey or Kelsey but I know Mel got her unemployment and is doing the best she can. Mothers Day was difficult. We all miss you so very much.

The real estate thing didn’t work out so well for Keith and it may make you smile to know that he is now selling used cars. Henry was hospitalized and died a few a weeks ago – and just last week we lost Dominic to cancer. Those of us still around are muddling through as best we can.

If I told you about how I recently discovered that you can withdraw money with a debit card (and not just use it like a credit card which, as you know, I have never allowed myself to do) you would shake your head and maybe even roll your eyes. I’d give my right arm to have you fuss at me just one more time.