Pandemic Fault Lines

Longstanding relationships splintered.

Part 1: The Church in the Greenhouse (trucker Bill’s story)

Image created by me with GenCraft AI generator.

As the pandemic dragged on, new fault lines developed in all of our lives. Some people supported continued isolation, others insisted human contact was worth the risk. Brothers and sisters disagreed about whether face masks worked, and whether it was healthy to wear them for hours on end.

Then came the COVID vaccines. We were told this was the path back to normal life, that it was selfish to opt out, and that the unvaccinated posed a mortal danger to the elderly. Most people rolled up their sleeves. Those who didn't became pariahs.

Anxiety was piled on top of anxiety. Disruption was piled on top of disorientation on top of dislocation. Longstanding relationships splintered. "You became friends with different people," says Elisabeth, Bill’s wife. Many of "the good friends that you used to have, they more or less fell off."

Neither she nor Bill are vaccinated. "We've seen enough to know it's dangerous," she explains. In March 2021, her best friend Pam (not her real name), celebrated her 70th birthday. "Everything was good, nothing was going on. She took her first jab. She had it on April 16th - and everything just changed about her."

Invited for dinner a few days later, Elisabeth remembers Pam didn't eat anything. "I said 'Pam, what's going on? Why are you not eating?' And she said, 'I'll choke.' I said, 'Of course you won't choke.'"

But Pam "refused to eat. Refused. She just kept saying 'I'm gonna choke.' After that it just went downhill. She said, 'It feels like my head's on the ceiling. I know it's not, but it feels like it's on the ceiling. And then my ears, my ears. I don't know what's going on.'"

Speaking quietly, sorrowfully, Elisabeth recalls, "Everything went wrong in her head." Doctors ran numerous tests, ruling out Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other disorders.

"She stopped eating completely. I said, 'Honey, you need sustenance, and you're not getting it.' I would look after her then, once a week. And so would my other friend. Anyways, all of a sudden she went into seizures one day, the end of August."

Pam was hospitalized. She died on September 11th, five months after receiving an injection that was supposed to safeguard her health.

next installment: Faith in a Higher Power