On Friday, March 13, 2020, we were sent home from school for an early spring break. There were two cases of COVID-19 in my town at the time. Earlier in the week, I had half-jokingly called my grandparents to tell them to stay inside. We were only supposed to be home for two weeks and yet my friends and I cried in the halls before we left. Denial mixed eerily with permanence, and the drunker my friends and I got as one last hoorah, the more we realized it was our one last hoorah – the more the permanence became palpable.
I knew from the start of the pandemic that everything was about to change, though I could not begin to imagine how. I was supposed to go on a service trip to Washington, D.C. for spring break. Some of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. were in Washington, D.C. I remember when I read about those cases, my stomach dropped. I saw it as the beginning of something huge with no end in sight. My friends saw it as the beginning of nothing, and thus they too did not see an end. They told me I had nothing to worry about when I complained about my trip potentially getting cancelled. We were all oblivious.
On March 22, 2021 – my brother’s 18th birthday – I got my first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. It’s been over a year, and now, the end draws near. I can look forward to his birthday next year, likely to be celebrated partying at college with masks, as well as the weight of a broken world, lifted. And yet I still remember back to his 17th birthday, celebrated in isolation and quarantine. My Snapchat memories flood with months of pain and loss. As we move forward, it’s the looking back that hurts.
On March 28, 2020, my pop-pop turned 86 years old. On March 28, 2021, my dad received his second dose of the vaccine.
On April 19, 2020, my pop-pop passed away due to COVID-19. On April 19, 2021, I received my second dose of the vaccine.
Behind a smiling picture of me and my vaccination card is someone still broken by the past year; beyond the Band-Aid pictured on my shoulder, my arm throbs, heavy and sore with the repercussions of progress. Though the pain in my arm is temporary, I know the pain of loss – of my pop-pop, of parts of myself – is less so.
Almost immediately after taking my vaccination card selfie, I lifted my arm up quickly and a sharp pain shot from my elbow to my neck. My eyes welled with tears.
As the days went on, that pain got less and less and eventually disappeared. I imagine it will stay that way until my second shot. And then after that until I get shots in the future – COVID-related or not.
I don’t anticipate that pain, but I will be ready when it comes. I’ve looked into the darkness of the future for the past year. Now, I’d like to look into the light.
On May 3, it will have been two weeks since my second vaccination, and I will be fully protected. I will take my 91-year-old grandma out to dinner for the first time in over a year. On my calendar, I mark the date with a smile.