Choose one

Each morning I wake up and for a moment I feel the joy of a new day. But all too quickly my throat tightens, and I remember what is happening here. Many people don’t have the grace of that moment. They can’t for a second forget the loss they have suffered this week.

What we know about this mass shooting is bad enough, but what’s worse, is that every day we find out more people have died. There is no digesting this news when more and more grief is added to this meal of sorrow.

Whether you have a connection to the tragedy or not, you feel this tightening, this sense of helplessness that hangs like a shroud over your eyes and heart when death and loss fill every day.

Everyone is looking for something they can do to help. It’s not within our power to bring back the people that have died but we can honour their memory. There are a lot of suggestions on what we can do to move through the grieving process —social media tributes, candles in the window, and monetary donations to the families left behind.

But one thing I know from life experience, is that no matter how much we want to help, for those of us not directly impacted by this tragedy, in the months and years to come, this tragedy will fade. And although now we say we want to remember the names of the victims, not the perpetrator, it is his name we will remember when we think of this horrible event in the years to come.

That is not because we want to remember the shooter but because the human mind can’t remember so many separate pieces of information—not without trying. Phone numbers are seven digits long because seven discrete pieces of information is what our brains can handle. We can’t remember all the names of those lost to this tragedy.

Recently I read something that, at the time, I thought I had no use for—it was a suggestion that in the instance of some mass shooting, natural disaster or terrorist attack- you choose one name to remember. When there are 10s, 100s or 1000s of victims it is difficult to remember the people behind the numbers, so choose one and remember them every day.

Choose one name and say it, write it, read it each day. Pick a time, perhaps when you first wake up, your first coffee of the day, or when you lay down to sleep—but choose a time to remember and do it every day.

I will choose one person and find out one fact about this person to remember them by. I will repeat it every day and I will not think of this person as a victim, because surely that is not how they would like to be remembered. I will think of them as the person who embodied this fact—did this job, played this instrument, was a daughter, son, mother, or father.

I will say the name, read the name, write the name --of a person I never knew. That person will be who I always remember when the anniversary of this horrible tragedy comes around year after year.

I will remember them every day and keep their name alive because it’s the one thing I can do.

Emily Tuck—fiddle player.

Safe spaces under isolation

Heading into week five of isolation and I continue to feel very grateful that my isolation crew includes my kids. We three are on this journey through unknown days and things are going well. We have a big house with lots of room to get away from each other if needs be. We have a big yard where we can swing in a hammock, play badminton or throw sticks for the dog. We have a village where we can walk and see the occasional neighbour and wave at folks as they putter about their yard as spring invites us to work outside.

The Huey Lewis and the News song “Stuck with You” is on repeat in my head and although the lyrics refer to a couple—the chorus is applicable to this situation. Every time I think of it, I think of how lucky I am to be in this situation.

And I know what it could be like if I was less fortunate. As an adult I have always strived to create a home that was a haven from the world instead of a battlefield. My home life as a teenager was the latter—one minefield and bomb after another. And I have had a few co-habitation relationships as an adult that were less than peaceful as well.

Talking to my stepmother the other day I mentioned to her that I had told my kids that they were lucky—because although they could not see their friends, at least they liked the parent they were stuck with for the duration of the pandemic. It would not have been the same situation for me at their age. I laughingly told my stepmother that in a similar situation – my mother and I surely would have committed homicide. Not sure who would have survived, but one of us would not.

And because I know how bad my home situation was as a teenager, and how nobody could or would help me; I know there are kids out there now who are living that nightmare under isolation. My refuge as a teenager was my school; friends and teachers who valued me, who made me feel that I was a good person. That’s why I loved my high school in Edmonton so much—Victoria Composite was the place I could be me, where I could forget about home for a while, where I could be happy for a few hours a day.

The worse thing my mother ever did to me was break into that space and start talking to my teachers, telling them horrible things about me. Up until she talked to them, they thought I was a smart kid, perhaps a little challenging – but smart nonetheless. After she talked to them, they were watching me for signs of suicide and mental illness.

I know how it felt to have my ‘good place’ taken away. Many kids have no ‘good place’ anymore. They are confined with their abusers. More stuck than I ever was. For them, COVID-19 might be a death sentence whether or not they catch the virus. And even if they survive this pandemic the mental scars will take decades to fade.

I can still get riled up when I think about my mother, but for the most part, I let those memories lie dormant. I have a good life. I have made a good home. My kids like me—and follow my rules although sometimes reluctantly. There have been some hard patches, but we’ve been going over some good terrain lately. That will change. It always does—there are always problems, but nothing that we can’t work on together.

As each day and now week of isolation goes by, I think of the kids who can’t say that they’re in a good patch, who can’t work with their parents when they have a problem and I hope that they can find a safe space—even if it is only a corner in their head, to be somewhere else for a little while.

The bare-faced truth?

To mask or not to mask—that has been the question that has been gaining traction as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the world.

There are conflicting reports on whether or not wearing a mask will help reduce the spread of the virus. In Canada the standard advice has been—only wear a mask if you are ill or caring for someone who is ill. And this is good advice. You should definitely wear a mask in these circumstances, but the west is beginning to look to the east and rethinking this strategy.

In the east, it is and has been for many decades, common practice to don a surgical mask in the winter season when cold and flu bugs are at their height or when a known pathogen is running through the region. I lived in Thailand through several serious outbreaks—SARS and Bird Flu-- and it was common to see everyone wearing masks. I’ve spent a few winter seasons in Taiwan, and again, not all but many people wore masks. Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea—all commonly wear masks to reduce the risk of contagion. And that practice has been ramped up in the age of COVID-19. But not in the west.

In the early days of COVID-19’s introduction into the United States, a friend of mine, who is Taiwanese, wrote on Facebook that she was criticized for wearing a mask in public. She saw it as a preventative measure and a normal course of action. I don’t remember now what the content of the criticism was, but it was fuelled by the uncomfortable feeling face coverings of any sort seems to cause in the psyche of many Americans.

Three months into the pandemic, North American and European governments are starting to change their tune on the wearing of masks as a preventative measure. In the early days of the contagion, these same governments said there was no concrete evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks would reduce the spread of the disease. Some suggested that the improper use of masks might actually increase the spread of the virus as people might touch their faces more to secure the masks, or otherwise use them incorrectly.

Now we are realizing such concerns may have been wrongheaded. The number of infections that could have been prevented by the wearing of masks by the general public may far surpass the number that might have been caused by incorrect usage.

There’s no hard data behind this theory only observational evidence deduced from the number of cases in countries that typically wear masks to those that don’t.

Canada first reported case January 15, total cases April 3 – 12, 537

United States first reported case January 20, total cases April 3 - 277,985

Japan first reported case January 16, April 3-2,855

South Korea first reported case January 20, April 3-10,156

Hong Kong first reported case 23 January, April 3 - 862

Taiwan first reported case January 20, April 3- 355

These numbers are only part of the story. To really see the discrepancy between the spread of COVID-19 in the west versus that in the east you have to look at the cases per million people in each country.

Canada cases per million 332

United States cases per million 839

Japan cases per million 23

Taiwan cases per million 15

Hong Kong cases per million 115

South Korea cases per million 198

Canada should perhaps be judged separately as the population density is so much less than any of these Asian countries or the United States and higher population density should increase infection rates if measures aren’t taken to counteract that factor.

Population density in Canada is 4 people per Km², Japan - 347 per Km², Taiwan – 649 per Km², Hong Kong - 6,659 per Km², and South Korea – 503 per Km². Population density in the United States is 36 per Km². Population density of New York City, one of the epicentres of the pandemic in the U.S, is 10,194 per Km² while Seoul, South Korea has a population density of 17,000 per Km².

Based on these numbers alone, it seems that wearing surgical masks may be part of the answer to reducing the spread of COVID-19. It certainly isn’t something we should ignore and not adopting this measure in January may have contributed to the rates of infection seen today in Canada and the U.S.

Where do we go from here? Should we all start wearing surgical masks? In a perfect world, the answer would be yes. It can’t hurt. But this is not a perfect world and every day brings news of frontline health care workers voicing concerns about the dwindling supply of PPE (personal protective equipment) including surgical masks.

The new hope has focused on homemade masks. A new cottage industry, often not-for-profit with volunteer labour, for the construction of cloth masks to supplement factory made surgical masks has arisen. Fuelled by social media, instructions for mask fabrication are breathing new life into old machines that were abandoned because we didn’t have time to use them until the pandemic left us little else to do.

But are homemade masks effective protection from COVID-19? There isn’t much research published in this area. Experiments that have been conducted and published in the past 10 years suggests that homemade cloth masks are not effective in reducing the spread of viruses.

A paper published in the Annals of Occupational Hygiene in 2010  studied the performance of sweatshirts, T-shirts, towels, scarves, and cloth masks in filtration of virus-sized particles. The results of various tests showed that all of these fabrics had near instantaneous penetration by particles; almost completely ineffective in protecting wearers from virus particles.

Another research paper published in 2015  comparing the use of cloth masks versus medical masks in healthcare workers came to a similar conclusion; rates of infection were highest for workers wearing cloth masks.

The authors of this paper recently released an update in light of the recent mask shortages reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. As one of the few clinically based research papers published on this now pressing issue, the authors have been bombarded by questions from the medical community. Their advice to workers who choose to wear cloth masks, which isn’t really a choice but the line of last possible defence, is “have at least two and cycle them, so that each one can be washed and dried after daily use. Sanitizer spray or UV disinfection boxes can be used to clean them during breaks in a single day. These are pragmatic, rather than evidence-based suggestions, given the situation.”

The takeaway from what little evidenced-based information we have on the use of cloth masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is that an almost completely ineffective measure is better than nothing. A desperate message if ever there was one.

The question of masks currently comes down to what is currently available and what is a last-ditch effort. When supplies of effective PPE are running low, only those workers on the front lines should be allowed to wear them starting with our health care workers- they are obviously in the most at risk environment. Next on the priority list is anybody’s guess—all essential workers should have protection but when supplies are low, that may not be possible.

The COVID-19 pandemic will resolve itself in time, but we need to take heed of the lessons learned today. We need more PPE for health care workers. We in the west need to adopt the Asian practice of wearing masks whenever a serious virus is on the move. We need to have a supply of surgical masks that can cover every face on the planet. It is only then that we will be free to live as we please when invisible invaders threaten the health and economy of the world.

Working from home

In the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic lots of people are experiencing what it means to work from home.

In the past, people thought working from home meant spending the day in your pajamas, working at your own pace, and not dealing with annoying co-workers.

I have been working from home for almost a decade and the only part of that scenario that is true is the pajamas.

Working from home is difficult. It requires self-discipline. There are deadlines, especially in my business, and you have to meet them. There’s no boss to check in on your progress—to give you a smile that says ‘deadlines loom, get cracking.’

There are no coffee breaks with colleagues, annoying or otherwise. You’re on your own.

This is probably what I dislike most about working from home—no one to talk to throughout the day. When a story falls apart or an interview subject is less than helpful; there is nobody there to offer a sympathetic ear. No one to share those funny anecdotes about the day’s work. My kids suffer through these comments; but their nods of agreement are just not the same as someone who really understands, someone who is also in the trenches of a newsroom -if those even exist anymore.

And then there are the interruptions. When you work from home, people think you are just ‘at home.’  But you’re not, you are working.

I have to admit there are times that I sit perched in my home office and watch people come to my door, knock and eventually retreat. Sometimes they even come into the house; I just keeping working silently in my room.

My schedule is erratic because news stories can happen at any time in the day or night. I don’t expect people to know my schedule, but I do hope they can understand that I am not doing nothing at home all day.

And COVID-19 has made this whole working from home thing just a little bit harder as now my children are home every day, all day. No school for them means more interruptions at work for me. That being said, they are pretty good at leaving me alone when I a working shut up in my office. It helps that this Christmas one of my kids made me a sign to hang on my door indicating when I was working and needed to be left alone.

It is difficult for the kids when they have a question about something, to leave that question until I open the door and ‘come home’ from work. Sometimes they just can’t wait but the older they get the easier it is.

Lots of people are dealing with the work from home situation right now and it is a challenge, but it is safe. I am very lucky that aside from no longer conducting face-to-face interviews, my job has not changed much—and I still have one.

I have always loved what I do, it’s an important job. Now more than ever, people need reliable, fact-based reporting. After this crisis abates, I hope everyone remembers that working from home is still working and that journalism is an essential service too.  

The number game

Back when I was still in the teaching racket, I would often use a popular ice breaker game at the start of each new term. It goes by many names, but I would usually call it the number cloud in my lesson plan. It’s a simple and effective way of getting to know a new class and assess their language level at the same time.

Draw on the board a fluffy cloud and fill it with four to six numbers that relate to your life. Students then ask questions to determine what relevance the numbers have to the person at the front of the class. Once they get the drift of the game and the questions, students can make their own number clouds and interact with their classmates and teacher.

I typically started off with my age, number of siblings, birthday and, later in my teaching career, number of children. These numbers, while significant, aren’t the numbers that have occupied a mystical space in my life. The numbers that have and continue to hold the most significance in my life, are numbers that mark significant events in the lives of my antecedents. Let’s start with the number 15.

In my family a girls’ fifteenth birthday was the first hurdle of recognized womanhood. It was at this age that one of my aunts got married. And on this birthday, that aunt would call you and give you the talk. The talk on how not to get married at 15.

I turned fifteen whilst living in the Newfoundland outport community of Harbour Deep. One road measuring 2.5 miles from end to end. Travel out of the village required a seaplane or boat.

My mother was the nurse at the station in Harbour Deep and my sister and I came to live there that summer after six months of living in almost complete isolation outside of the town of Pugwash, Nova Scotia where the only thing that fed us and the two children we looked after was bear meat that had been left in the freezer from the year before.

Harbour Deep was a dream for us after the winter we had just come through. There was a housekeeper assigned to the station and she made us wonderful meals, took care of our laundry, and basically made our lives very pleasant. We had satellite TV and watched programs until the light of a new day crept into the living room where my sister and I shared a sofa bed.

I was sitting on that sofa, after a fantastic birthday meal prepared by the housekeeper, when the phone rang. It was my aunt, calling from Massachusetts. First words out of her mouth, “Happy birthday-don’t get married.” I assured her I wouldn’t. And perhaps I took that promise a little beyond what she intended because I am now closing in on fifty and have never been married; but I think she’d approve of that too.

The next two numbers have both hung over my life like an executioner’s sword—31 and 36—both ages to conquer if the fates would allow.

According to my mother, her grandmother and namesake died at the age of 31. Given the era, the early 1940s, one might imagine any number of reasons a woman of that age would die, but I was always told that it was suicide. Although not many other people in the family ever gave credit to this assertion when I would discuss the matter, documents we found in my great-aunt’s house after her death (sister to my great-grandmother and my namesake-Lois), led me to believe that my great-grandmother suffered from severe depression. Suicide would not be unusual in such circumstances.

I’ve walked past the small pond where my great-grandmother died and have many questions that will never be answered. I throw them like pebbles on the water to no effect, not even a ripple.

There is a certain bent towards mental illness on my mother’s side of the family and 31 became the milestone to pass. A breath of relief could be released when the 32^nd birthday rolled around. I remember having conversations with some family members—just checking in with each other to be sure that our actions didn’t fit in the crazy category. It’s a very strange conversation to have, sussing each other out; searching for madness.

In the spring of 1998 my aunt, the one who had gotten married at the age 15, became very ill. She was 36. And she died.

The sixth of 10 children, mother of two; died of an unstoppable bacterial infection. A nurse who probably picked the infection up at work, quickly became sick, and left before any of us could even think to prepare for such an outcome.

That spring I was preparing to leave my life in Canada behind. I was suffering through a horrible break up and did a lot of drinking and found many short-term boyfriends to fill the void. I had some money and planned to leave the city where I was living—where every corner led to another facet of life I had once shared with my ex—and move to Asia. Thailand—seemed like a good place to start a new life.

I got a parcel in the mail. A video that was being passed around through the family, the one my grandfather had made of his trip to Alaska the previous summer. The one where he watched trains and commented enthusiastically about flowers in bloom. I was instructed to pass it on to my aunt, the nurse, after I had had my fill of flowers “that was just a bud yesterday.”

I sent the package and the next day got a call from one of my aunts informing me of the situation my aunt in Alaska was facing. I had to decide if the money I had would go towards a ticket to Alaska to see my sick aunt or a ticket to Thailand, to start a new life. I thought about what my aunt would likely advise, and I thought, and still think, that she would have told me to go in search of that new life. That is what she herself did—started over, became a nurse, got a new life.

I was devastated when I heard that she had died. I returned to the family about a month after her death and stayed there until I had all the details arranged for my move to Thailand. I added another number to the list. I was 24 years old.

At the age of 31 I became a mother for the first time. At the age of 36, I had been living in my hometown in Nova Scotia for one year, had two kids, and was living in the deepest poverty I have ever known. But I lived through that year and things got better. And it was at that time I got a new number to add to my list 87.

The spring that I was 36 my grandmother died. She was the one person who I’d always been able to turn to. She was not what I would call a soft person but sensible—the level head you need in a crisis. I held her hand during her last moments of life. I told her doctor she wanted no extraordinary measures. I assured him I knew what that meant.

My grandmother and I had discussed dying many times and she was at peace but knew that it would be hard for those of us left behind. She was 87 years old. Her husband, my grandfather, who I remember lecturing me on how to layer the quilt I was making for the aforementioned ex, as he lay on the sofa, also died at the age of 87.

That is my new number. The age to which I aspire. Eighty-seven years is a good amount of time and I am more than halfway there—but that doesn’t bother me. I just hope it is like all the other numbers on my personal list—something I can look at in the rear-view mirror.

I have been thinking of these numbers as I face 2020 and all that it has wrought to date. I don’t know if other people have these numeric milestones in their lives. I suspect many do but one thing I am certain of is that no one alive today will ever encounter the number 2020 again without recalling this year and the way it changed us all—hopefully for the better.

Brave new world

It had been seven days, and I would have stayed out of stores longer if we hadn’t run out of milk, but the inevitable happened and I had to make a trip to my local grocery.

I had been saving up a lot of errands that required going into public buildings so I could do them all at once. My list this week included the vet, the hardware store, the post office, the grocery store, and a neighbour’s house to drop off some supplies.

Despite staying out of shops, I have been outside every day. That’s one of the perks of living in the country—we can still get out for a walk or mess about in the back yard. But I hadn’t been in enclosed spaces with people other than my kids for a week. I had no idea how greatly the experience would impact me physically and mentally.

I have been reducing my visits to public buildings. I used to go to the grocery store every day, same was true of the post office—and I’d probably run to the Dollar Store for craft supplies, notebooks or some other esoteric household product. All that stopped mid-March.

As we entered a new month, I started my voyage into civilization at the veterinary clinic. I called before my visit to determine what product I actually needed and to find out what their operating protocol was at this time. One person/pet at a time in the office, which is a very small space.

When I arrived at the vet’s, I tried to gauge from the number of cars in the vicinity if there were other clients in the office. But there are so many offices in that area it was impossible to tell what vehicle belonged to what door. I cautiously opened the vet’s door, stuck my head into the outer office and surveyed the space. The receptionist who I had talked to on the phone, chuckled a bit at my surveillance, and invited me in.

I quickly picked up my flea and tick medicine for my dog. Perhaps a little early but I wanted to beat the rush when people suddenly realized spring had sprung and a run on such pet medicine might begin to look like the one we’ve been experiencing with toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

Next stop, grocery store. I met the customer counter outside the entrance; there was one person waiting to go inside. Only 15 people are allowed in the store at any time. I decided to do another errand and return. On to the Hardware store.

Again, I had called ahead. I wanted cat flea and tick medicine, see above for the reason why, duct tape because in a real emergency you need duct tape not toilet paper, and a bird feeder; the kind that sticks to your window with suction cups. We had had one of these before, won it at the Easter Hospital Bazaar. It was so entertaining to watch the birds come to the window. The cats’ reaction to these feathered friends was hilarious. The birds were only spared from the cats’ claws and teeth by a pane of glass and they seemed to taunt the cats with their invincibility. Watching this front room theatre would surely lift our self-isolation blues.

Staff had gotten the things I had asked about on the phone out and ready for me at the cash; even though I had not asked them to do so. I doubled up on the cat medicine; I had run out of this before and as we have no idea how long this new normal will last; I thought I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Back to the grocery store. Of course now, instead of one person waiting to enter the store, there were three. Most of us stood outside, separated by the required 2-metre physical distance. Thankfully, the terminology on this has changed in the past week from social distancing to physical distancing as social distance is the last thing we need at a time like this. I appreciated the wait. Gave me a chance to talk to people.

In less than 10 minutes I was able to get into the store. Upon entry, I moved around the store sticking to my list faithfully with the exception of adding a few more fresh vegetables. But it wasn’t a normal experience. I played a version of supermarket sweep, that game where you put as much in your cart in 60 seconds as you can and you get it for free—except these groceries aren’t free and rushing through the store is a strategy to avoid being around people.

For the most part shoppers were very careful about maintaining physical distance. There were a few who paid no heed to the lines marked on the floor by painter’s tape to indicate where they should stand to comply with the 2-metre distancing protocol. In my less than 20 minutes in the store, I could feel my irritation grow with those who weren’t making an effort to maintain their distance.

Next stop was a neighbour’s house where I dropped off supplies I had picked up for her at the grocery store. No contact—I didn’t even see her; left the bag on the step.

On to the post office, only five people allowed entry at any time. The vestibule where the P.O. Boxes are housed was empty, but I could hear the workers through the wall. Very odd to hear but not see people—at least here. Country living means there isn’t much living in apartment buildings where you live with the sounds of invisible people all the time.

And that was the last stop.

The grocery store had stressed me out, being that close to people. And these days stress gives me a raging headache; a legacy effect of the concussion I sustained over a year ago. By the time I got out of the post office, I also had a sore throat. Two days later neither symptom has fully subsided, but time is beginning to calm them down.  

Luckily for me, life hasn’t changed that much under the current COVID-19 state of emergency. I have always worked from home, always enjoyed my own company and my kids’. The biggest and hardest change for me in this brave new world is not seeing my Da. I call the house almost every day—we talk about birds, squirrels, and snow.

And now I know that going out to do everyday errands will make me so stressed I’ll express physical symptoms. I wasn’t expecting that.

I lived in Asia during SARS (2003) and Bird Flu (2005); and I didn’t feel impacted other than that my favourite Khao Man Gai restaurant closed. This feels much different—I have my kids and the parents to worry about. It’s a greater mental weight to carry.

I will continue to work through each day, find things for the kids to do and write some little ditties for my own amusement. Hopefully the birds will find the new feeder soon and we’ll have that to keep us occupied too. I’ll be trying to stretch out the time between grocery store visits, which will greatly reduce my ice cream consumption—I’ll count that as a COVID-19 silver lining. And I’ll keep looking for the bright side because there are always a few.