Dear Reader,
On March 9, 2020, I spent the day in Boston with relatives from Norway. My cousin’s husband had been invited to attend a conference at the Harvard Business School starting the next day. Very worried about what was as yet not the word on all our lips—Covid—I arranged to meet them downtown and stay outdoors. It was so sunny and warm, we soon shed our jackets. We walked the Freedom Trail, the Greenway and along the harbor front, stopping to watch the seals in the New England Aquarium’s
outdoor tank. A happy, normal time. We tasted each other’s ice cream flavors. The idea that I would not be in Boston again until January 29, 2021, and then only briefly to get our vaccinations at Tufts Medical, would have been unimaginable. As would the fact that I would not next see this family until June 24, 2022.
On March 10th, the Massachusetts Governor declared a State of Emergency. It
continued until June 2021.
What happened in between, both to me personally, family, friends, and the world became this book, which I began writing in the fall of 2021 and finished in the summer of 2022. I started keeping a daily journal a few days after being in Boston when the pandemic became real with astonishing and terrifying speed. I jotted down notes on what I called “foraging”, safely sourcing food and other supplies; where we went to walk—often driving to national and state parks in the state previously unknown to us;
what was happening in the country, the world. How I was feeling. And more. The Norwegians left March 11th, by the way, traveling in a rented car to JFK airport to get one of the only flights back to Oslo and immediate quarantine.
Day by day the cancellations and closures mounted until March 20th when Massachusetts recorded its first death from the virus. On March 23rd, the Governor’s Stay At Home Advisory went into effect. Our son moved in and worked remotely from March 18, 2020, until May 20, 2021. We three were a Pod.
At times it was difficult to write this book. I decided to begin the timeline in January 2021 when the hope vaccination offered became real, but as you have read, Faith looks back, as did I. Like millions worldwide, we lost someone beloved— a family member. It was April 9th, only a month after my cloudless day in Boston. The inability to gather to mourn him, and for one of his sons to be at his side, living literally minutes away was devastating.
I saved many of the December 2020 Holiday cards we received. The letters and notes were filled with the ways all were coping. A few had picked up stakes and moved to be near family or to hunker down in what had previously been a summer retreat. Many brought sad news, but all expressed hope for 2021. My favorite card was one from friends in Florida, a quote from Tennyson handwritten on a folded piece of construction paper, “Hope Smiles From The Threshold Of The Year To Come”. I looked it up and the final words “it will be happier.” made it resonate even more.
A number of readers have mentioned going back to the Author’s Note at the end of The Body in the Lighthouse in which I wrote about the aftermath of 9/11 and the difficulty of writing a book following the catastrophic event. I stopped for some months as I stopped this time too. Rereading the Lighthouse note, I’ve been struck by how I could simply have copied it, changed the date, several descriptive sentences and it would apply—saying what I want to say to you now.
“There were no degrees of separation on September 11” I wrote and that was true at the start of the pandemic. “We are all in this together.” I am not naïve and there are deep divisions in our country, but throughout the pandemic, and continuing as each new variant like the Hydra’s head raises fears and causes a spike in cases, people helped each other. Acts of kindness were enumerable. The heroic work of healthcare workers of all kinds, putting their lives on hold and on the line will be remembered when the history of all this is written in the future.
The future. At the close of the Lighthouse note, I write “Just as many of us date things from before the Cuban missile crisis and before the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr., we now have another ‘before’.” Now we have an even greater “before”. “Pre-pandemic” has entered our daily conversations. “I saw someone…” “That was…” and so forth. After September 11th, I mourned a world lost to our children that had seemed a place safe from such an attack. Those children are
adults now, many with children of their own, and I mourn the loss of the pre-pandemic world for them. The toll that remote learning, isolation, and loss has taken in multiple forms can never be remedied.
As we enter in what is being termed, “Living with Covid”, my wish for you, dear readers, is the same as I expressed all those years ago. That we hold on to hope—and in every way possible, each other. Altogether.
With many thanks and best wishes,
Katherine
Copyright Katherine Hall Page and Proximity Internet Productions, 2007-