Connections
I told this story on the Story Collider podcast, which featured Covid-19 stories. The theme of this podcast was “Connections.”
Read the words and hear the story told live here. (I am “Story 2”)
Excerpt:
It’s February 29 of this year, BC, before COVID, and I’m off to New Jersey a hundred miles away to my dad’s 93rd birthday. He and my mom now live in my sister’s living room.
My little sister is a doctor so they have basically built-in urgent care. My eldest sister is a project manager and shows up to family gatherings carrying a portable file box trying in vain to keep our chronically disorganized family aligned. And my brother, he's the prince among the girls. He's the only guy and he and my dad are like best buds. They worked together for something like 40 years. I have another sister who’s in Europe. She's an opera singer. She's the exotic one.
So me, I’m the middle child and I’m sort of the troubled one, the also-ran, and in the order of importance, I’m like fourth, maybe fifth, depending on how you count my sister in Europe. And we all call ourselves the kids even though we range in ages from 50 to 70 years old. We get along really well. We’re all visiting my parents all the time.
So today for my dad’s party, I bring the bagels, lots of cream cheese. My elder sister brings some nice spreads. My brother brings beverages. My niece makes homemade birthday cake like she always does.
My mom’s been under the weather. She has COPD and she's on oxygen. There may be fluid on her lungs. And my dad, he's also not well. He's got chest pains and he's been sleeping sitting up in his recliner….