Half Life – 51 - beep
October 22nd, 2021
Virtual dinner parties, distance quizzes, remote working, and video job interviews quickly replaced their real-world counterparts when the country locked itself at home to avoid everyone’s favourite virus. Chatting merrily away on screens to family and friends as an alternative to seeing them in person quickly became a normal, and sometimes easier, way of keeping in touch. Topics of conversation were strained once the novelty wore off, resorting to discussions about the availability of toilet paper, the best TV series to binge watch next, and what books to tackle now you have the time. These skills of the 2020’s were not developed in vain in our house. When, predictably, The Wife came down with covid a few days after Younger Boy and was confined to the spare room with JJ the dog for company, they came into their own. As an extra precaution, to avoid the potentially deadly mixture of catching covid while deprived of an effective immune system thanks to the chemo, I was banished to our bedroom.
Having each member of the family in their own room heralded in a regime of muddling through combined with obsessive cleaning and disinfecting. The investment in giving the Boys phones started to pay back. Every discussion and conversation about who was doing what moved on-line, as phones became our internal network. WhatsApp took the lead, with one-to-one chats and group calls allowing a sense of connection from behind closed doors. Text messages and even normal voice calls, a novelty for the Boys’ phones, kept us talking and made sure we were all doing well.
Noisy notifications are usually turned off on my phone to prevent endless intrusion and being pulled away from something important. Messages get dealt with as and when there is time, otherwise they start to take over. At night, the mobile is turned off completely on the basis that if it is urgent people can call the land line. The risk of missing serious in-house messages made it necessary to turn on the noise notifications and, to ensure emergencies were covered, meant the phone had to be on all night.
A few hours into isolation, the beep started to take over my life. Every few minutes the minimalist sound I’d chosen went off. The group function meant silly comments between The Boys triggered the same beep as a comment or request from The Wife, forcing each beep to be looked at. Add in texts, emails, and other people firing off WhatsApp messages and the beeping sounded like the morse code edition of War and Peace. Trying different noises for different messages simply made it worse. Alternative approaches to communication provided reconfirmation, if it was needed, that shouting from one part of a house to another is not effective. Not only does it make it easy to pretend what was shouted wasn’t heard, it gives the chance that it was misheard. When injunctions such as ‘don’t throw it away’ or ‘don’t eat that, it’s for dinner’ are the instruction, it seems it’s always the word ‘don’t’ that fails to make it to a room on other side of the house.
Focusing on getting through one day at a time, our family prison mostly worked. Once Older Boy was over his isolation, and consistently testing negative, he started helping out so efficiently he severely damaged his image as a hopeless teenager. Food and the dog presented the greatest challenges, and it was human kindness, yet again, that kicked in to save the day. Comments that we would cope and be fine were ignored by friends, who left generous donations of beautifully cooked dinners at the door. These, plus some very basic cooking, kept everyone fed in style. Some cunning canine friends of JJ the Dog persuaded their owners (who have already enjoyed their own covid experiences) to step in and take her out with them every day, giving her not only a walk but an automatic playmate at the same time.
The weirdest ten days of family life have come mercifully to an end. The Wife has released herself from isolation at the same time as the riskiest days of the chemo are over, allowing me to emerge from my bedroom hiding place. Restarting the daily routine feels good and knowing three-quarters of us have had covid provides a level of reassurance that it’s less likely to come back into the house. With freedom from isolation comes freedom from the intrusive, demanding, incessant, beep. Just after cuddling The Wife, The Boys, and JJ for the first time in ten days, all notifications have been returned to silent, and although the daft videos and silly comments will continue to fly about, they can be blissfully ignored again.
What a weird time and you are still entertaining us with your weekly wit! Totally inspiring!!! I’m also in awe of the Wife, the boys and JJ of course💕💕
This on top of everything else and you still manage to hold on to your sense of humour - kudos!