#i want to call to wish her a belated mother's day and check in re: grandpa but also... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mmazzeroo · 4 years

Note

Happy belated nameday, Maria! I hope you had a great (and safe) day! ♥

Sharon, I’m so sorry! It has taken me almost two months to thank you for this lovely birthday greeting. You are so sweet and amazing for remembering and I’m not sure I even wished you on your nameday 😞Thus, very belated wishes of a happy nameday to you as well ❤️

With that said, please sit down and enjoy a nice cup of tea and let me explain why it’s taken me this long to get back to you - and a few others.

It was mid-March when my country went into covid19 lockdown. Initially the only downside for my family and I were the cancelling of birthdays hehe; have a sister and brother who are also proud March children. As a part-time student taking classes online there wasn’t much change for me in that area. However, I also work part-time in a kitchen at a 24-hour institution for young adults with autism which means I come into contact with a lot of people regularly. Living with my parents who are both retired and old enough to be classified as being 'at-risk', my chef decided I was one of the first ones who needed to stay home. Why I live with my old parents is another story for another time 🙂 With the stay-at-home order I remember thinking 'cool, then maybe I can finally sit myself down and get some writing done.' Yeah, right...

That’s when other news started to tick in.

- In the UK, a friend in the NHS had been working +18 hrs shifts on the psychiatric ward until he too was sent home because someone needed to look after his mentally unstable mother. - Another friend, in France, didn’t dare attend her beloved grandma’s funeral because she wasn’t sure if her fever was just a regular cold. - An old friend (as in time we’ve known each other), lost his father after a long hard battle with cancer. To make it worse he lives and works in Cyprus but his parents live in Athens, Greece, and because of the travel restrictions he couldn’t fly back to accompany his mother to the funeral. (Ok, he could but then he’d have to be in quarantine at a hotel for 14 days before being allowed to visit his mom). He talks with her twice daily but still hasn’t been able to visit her.

I’m from a large, close-knit family and they mean the world to me. Friends are considered extended family as in ’there’s the fridge, there’s the loo, make yourself at home.’ So imagining a scenario where I couldn’t attend the funeral of a loved one hit me like a knife. Around the time the stay-at-home order was put in place my dad had caught a cold. A cold that turned into pneumonia. A pneumonia that turned bad. A few days before my birthday he was admitted to the hospital because he began having trouble breathing. Up until that point he’d been at home, in bed and on antibiotics.The paramedics arrived quickly, wished him away and left me alone with my distraught mom. I’ll never forget the look in the driver's eyes when he reluctantly told my mom she couldn’t come along. He understood the pain his words inflicted but there was nothing anyone could do.

My dad was somewhere in a hospital, all alone, fighting for his life and there was nothing I could do or say to change that. We weren’t allowed to go visit. My mom would call daily to get updates and for a couple of weeks they weren’t exactly uplifting. The best news was that it wasn’t covid19. But, he was (briefly) put on a ventilator to help him breathe.

My mom distracted herself with cleaning and sorting and cooking etc. I, on the other hand, just shut down. I stopped reading, watching or listening to any kind of news, I might check a few of the notifications I got on twitter and insta, but I’d logged out of tumblr. I numbed my mind with movies and series - netflix became my new safe haven. I would have movies or a series running till I passed out from exhaustion.

Then one night there was a ping on my phone telling me there was a mail. It was from tumblr telling me that @tomakeitbeautifultolive had asked a question. It was so unexpected. Such a sweet, simple and kind gesture in the middle of my chaos was more than I knew how to handle so I cried. Silent tears and sniffles evolved into full blown sobbing, squeezing the pillow so tight I strangled the poor thing to death. Despite it sounding terrible how you wishing me a happy nameday caused me to cry myself to sleep, I want to thank you because I needed to get it out and you just happened to be the catalyst ❤️

Sorry for taking so long but I was so overwhelmed that even a simple thank you was too much for me 😞 The only one I’ve had bit of contact with is my awesome latino sis @helloimnotawesome but couldn’t even tell her because I didn’t know where to begin and honestly just wanted to pretend that the world only consisted of netflix and my bed. Sorry Val 😞

Started back at work again last Monday. Nice to be back but I also worry because the covid19 virus is still very much here, and what if I unknowingly bring it home? We live in a small town in a tourist area and since our government is talking of re-opening the borders it looks like we’ll get tourists this summer. Yes, they’re definitely needed and no, I don’t suspect or think badly of my European neighbours but..I’m still the one in the house who does the shopping and with more outsiders in the area the odds of the virus showing up here only increases. If from now on one of my parents get sick it will most likely be something I’ve brought home, and it scares me.

This turned out to be much longer than I thought it’d be. Sorry about that. If you stuck with me so far I’m very, very grateful.

I’ll end this on a happy note though: My dad is back home, safe and sound, and on the 28th of May he can celebrate his 75th birthday!

Once again, thank you Sharon! It meant more to me than I can ever express.

#Thank you for being a friend #2020 sucks #i've got mail

4 notes · View notes