I’m a physician and my 15-year-old son is a grocery store clerk. Living as essential services employees during this pandemic hasn’t been easy, writes Martina Scholtens
This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy.First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines atThere are two essential service workers in our six-person household. I’m a physician. My teenage son is a grocery-store employee.
With the onset of the pandemic, I paid little attention to Jacob’s job. I was preoccupied with the daily epidemic curves. I came to terms with my elevated risk as a physician, as colleagues posted to Twitter that they’d reviewed their wills and sent their children to stay with relatives. I was uneasy with the prospect of being transferred from psychiatry to the ICU. “I’m not afraid of dying,” I texted another resident. “I’m afraid of killing someone.
Now such congregations are prohibited. Even the humpback, who had been making appearances for weeks, distances itself. I look for it every day, longing for the surprise of a breach or spout, for a bit of grandeur to overwrite our unease, even for a minute. We deserve this largesse, as we video conference our pediatric patients with their small brave faces and smaller voices. We deserve reassurance that some reaches of the world are unaffected. The whale does not return.
Jacob announces that his employer has installed a Plexiglas shield between customer and cashier. This is more protection than I can access at the hospital. Masks are in such short supply that some residents are using the elastic from their fitted bedsheets to sew their own.Days turn to weeks, and we settle into our pandemic routine. Uncertainty and anticipatory grief remain aerosolized over the city.
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