She is 102 years old. Living in a residence. She has the help of aides who travel on buses and subways. Think about that.

She is cogent most of the time but has occasional bouts of old-age ideations, the typical paranoia and all that goes with it. She can be so “normal.” She can be so impossible. But, she is still here and she made it to another year. A year I never thought she would reach.

She was born in the year of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. That means that her parents survived it as well as an older sister. My mother outlived three sisters and her parents. And her husband.
She outlived three “boyfriends.” She survived pneumonia many times.

When we moved her back to NYC after about a thirty year sojourn in Florida; she had just come off hospice and was near death with pneumonia. She was ninety-five years old. We moved her out of her condo and into an apartment in a lovely assisted living building which served her meals. A place that I later  helped shut it down, as it fell apart, infested by rats of the animal and human kind.

And now this. Another epidemic. We don’t know how this will play out. I don’t want to empower the words of my fearful thoughts. I’ll just sit here with the hope that if she goes, it was her time, and no virus will get her.

We are not going over to celebrate, I do not think it is wise. Nor does the staff. This is not a “facility,” and not run by the state, it is a private, church-owned building with amenities for the elderly. We’ll talk on the phone.

What else is there to say? Maybe that this country has been so hate-filled and divided for several years that something had to step in and scare the shit out of everyone to heal the divide, to help us understand that we are all in this  global issue. Though the shelves are bare in stores, though schools are shut to kids, though restaurants have to close down, though there are shortages of staples, the sun continues to shine and days pass. People still have birthdays and carry on as best they can. Except now it is in panic mode.

Now we get a glimpse into living in the time of war. This seems to be a once in a century event since 1918.

The 1918 pandemic, a flu that killed more soldiers than WWI, is part of our global history, as this virus will become. We will fight it as best we can, we will survive.

Survival runs in my family.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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