NODA Sounds Wonderful

A beautiful and sad story, and particularly pontient for me this morning. My wife just texted me 20 minutes ago that her uncle died last night from Covid. He went to the hospital only two days ago after getting Covid about a week ago. I follow a lot of what Lauren Elizabeth writes from New York in the US about how horrible it is for her to watch the old folks die alone in the nursing home where she works, and your story fits well with a lot of her observations from her work.

My wife was very close with this aunt, who also has Covid but appears to be recovering, and uncle. We are in Austria and they are in Czechia. Due to Covid travel restrictions we were last able to physically visit nearly two years ago, and since then only Skype. We’re happy we live in a time and have the resources to at least have seen and talked with them, but it has been very hard for my wife who usually travels a couple of times a year to visit her family for a couple of days when I can’t travel due to business.

My wife and I have been talking daily about the situation, including which members of our family we may never physically see again. We had planned on flying to see my mom in the US last April. We even had tickets when they closed the borders on both sides of the Atlantic. My mom is losing her memory due to a type of Alzheimer’s. By the time we can travel again safely, I’m not sure how much she’ll even remember me. I try not to think too much about that, or what will happen if she catches Covid.