I want to write about this experience because I want to remind myself that nothing lasts forever and life can be shorter than I expected.
I heard news about COVID-19 from family and friends in Thailand in late December, 2019 and I was thinking it’s just another type of flu, nothing to worry about until Chinese New Year in February, 2020. I heard outbreak news about Wuhan, China and I was bit worried but I didn’t think it would bring a big change to our world.
I remembered I was waiting for a bus to go to work and talking with a few people that I see every morning because we take the same bus at the same time. I showed them an Instagram photo of a woman in China drinking bat soup and it had an actual bat (a dead one of course) inside a soup bowl. Many people here talked about it but we were not aware how serious it would be.
In the U.S., winter is a flu season and many people die every year. I told my mom not to worry about it. It’s just a flu. Until the number of sick and dead rate went up very high in Asia and I couldn’t find hand sanitizer, alcohol, or face masks (N95 and regular face mask). Even toilet paper was running out.
Finally my dream came true, yes, I am working from home. It started in mid-March and continue until now mid-May. I love working from home. Here are the reasons:
I save a lot of time each day because I don’t have to commute from home to work and back home. That is about 1.5 hours each day.
I can sleep in longer because I don’t have to catch a bus.
I save another 1 hour cooking time to prepare my breakfast and lunch.
I can eat fresh food for my lunch instead of something re-heated.
We can go for a short hike after work right away because my husband doesn’t have to wait for me to arrive home at around 5:30 – 6 p.m.
The pandemic has taught me many things. I see we as humans can adapt ourselves very well when we have to. I see how generous we can be and how cruel humans can be. I see how divided we can be.
I see the love that my family has for me because they worried about me after they saw the death rate in the U.S. from the news. They sent cloth face masks, alcohol, hand gel, wet wipes, and a face-shield. Those are easy to find items in Asia and it was not too expensive but of course they’re willing to pay an expensive delivery fee which costs them more than the cost of everything they sent me to make sure I will receive the package.
Our dear friends (Mark and Janet) made us cloth face masks and even dropped them off at our home because they were on their way to see their daughter who lives not far from us.
I had a colleague whose mother made a cloth face mask for everyone in our office.
I noticed many people shared photos of many national parks around the world after each country locked down. I can see how we can destroy nature so much, and how nature is trying to heal itself in a short period of time because we humans are not there to destroy it.
We have a friend, Erica, who enjoyed watching “How to Get Away with Murder” with us. We love this show so much. One day Erica tagged us on Facebook with a video from Conrad Ricamora (via Cameo.com). He’s Oliver Hampton in How to Get Away with Murder. He sent us a personal message and sang a song for us.!!!!! https://www.cameo.com/v/kV2neQVrx?fbclid=IwAR3JxSKFJpYeMEsRhzpUEtxs2aOavQI2Lb1ksXLOf2IjkSBD2XzDvWIp9LQ
Of course I saw the hard side of this pandemic too.
- We can’t hang out with our good friends like we used to every week.
- I can’t see my colleagues and chat with them in the afternoon like I used to.
- Many people have to close their business and many people lost their job.
- Many people don’t have health insurance and they choose to not go to the hospital because they can’t afford it.
- We had friends who had COVID but luckily they recovered from it.
- We lost a dear friend (not because of COVID-19) but we couldn’t be there because of travel restrictions.
- A shortage of medical equipment can cost many lives.
This is my own memoir to remind myself. I wish I could say Goodbye to 2020 and I look forward to a better year for all of us.
