When COVID hits close to home

 

Mother’s Day 5/10/2020

 

It was Mother Day 2020 when my 70 -year- old mother with a heart condition was placed on oxygen weak and dying of COVID-19. She had surgery previously due to her heart condition. She got COVID-19 from my brother and although he was recovering and getting healthy, We feared the unimaginable for our widowed mother. She is the most amazing nurturing and wonderful mother I could ever ask God and I couldn’t believe this was happening. We prayed. Oh we prayed. We had prayer coming across the globe, family in Mexico praying the rosary and Spanish Catholic novenas and family and friends all around the world. My husband and I humbly got on our knees and asked God  to heal my mother and may the “stripes of Jesus” heal her.  Suddenly a miracle, my mother improved and was released on Mother Day. I was still very nervous I would lose her, seeing how weak she was. When she got out the hospital she could barely talk but and she slowly took some breaths she said in Spanish “Where is the faith? I am going to die to old age not COVID-19. I trust in God.” My mother is the strongest Catholic I know and that Guadalupe radio bumper sticker on her demonstrates her faith and pride and a Catholic. I helped by praying daily. I also had groceries delivered to her home with my brother. My mother as resilient as she has always been and with the power of prayer my mother and brother fully recovered.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For His mercy endures forever.” Psalm 136:1 NKJ.

 

4/20/2020

I remember my mother glowing with joy just days before she was diagnosed with COVID-19. It was on my 40^th birthday. She cooked me pasta, baked a cake, and made her famous jello. I love my mom so much, words are not beautiful enough to describe the love between a mother and daughter, and her youngest mentally ill daughter. I am the strong woman I am today because of my mother. She is my hero and God’s gift to me. She made my birthday special so despite the quarantine. I thought I would get COVID-19 and was tested, by the grace of God the test was negative. After my family got sick, I didn’t feel fearless anymore. I used to feel unbreakable. I used to feel like “no plague would come near my family or dwelling.” Psalm  91

After COVID-19 hit close to home, I was in constant fear and paranoia. It didn’t help that the work stress I was experiencing was also triggering me but I was having a mental break down. My marriage was falling apart, my finances and I was in constant fear of COVID-19. This pandemic got the best of me. We almost even lost our condo and got behind on our mortgage. My mental health was effected and I felt like my world was falling apart.

 

We are living in a time of face masks, hand washing, and social distancing. They called it the new normal. When the pandemic first began to spread to the united states in March 2020 by brother Junior sent a family text messages about old ladies fighting over toilet paper. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t think it was funny, I was already in fear. At first there were jokes and memes and people posted things on social media like “come on I just want to go camping.” Weeks later I got a text from Junior it was a news clip. His friend died of COVID and was featured on the news. He was heartbroken. My brother’s friend  was just square dancing in his wedding in December.                 

My paranoia creeped up on me. This is tragic. I cried. COVID-19 has spread to my city and is taking innocent lives. Here in my condo I had a paranoid husband watching too many government conspiracy theory videos making me feel like I'm living in the twilight zone. My husband triggers my psychosis with his rambling and wide eyes. One day I got home from work and I could barely move around the house because there were boxes of food and hand sanitizer everywhere. I honestly, think he thinks they world is ending. So I just take some deep breaths, meditate, self-care, mindfully pet my emotional support dog Gypsy Blue. I want you to know something. There is a pandemic in the world. It's called coronavirus but there is also a pandemic in my mind and that one is called schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.

Before the pandemic effected my family, as a Christian, I thought Psalm 91 would protect me from any plague coming near my dwelling. I remember my friends Guillermo calling me to wish me a happy 40^th birthday and I told them I was not afraid of coronavirus because of God's promise in Psalm 91. I felt like the blood of Jesus would protect me. I will be honest with you I still know the blood of Jesus will protect me but I also know I have to trust God’s will. I remember Guillermo telling me not to walk around like I'm invincible and to be careful and wear my mask. He told me he cares about me. Days later I got the phone call that my brother was diagnosed with COVID-19. I got it via text from my sister and I was at work. I left out a huge scream and ran out crying. I was alone in the office but a clerk saw me run out of the building crying.

                                                                                                                                                 

I never imagined COVID-19 would effect my family. I felt like my world was falling apart. Even after my mom and brother fully recovered, I struggled. What we see on the news tends to scare us and feed into our paranoia with the pandemic. When I was in college I studied communications. My Bachelor of Arts degree is in communications with a concentration in Public Relations and the first thing all my professors said is “what bleeds leads.” They media tends to put all the gory stuff on the news scaring people so I refuse to watch the news.  I remember emailing KTLA and telling to stop playing “what bleeds leads.” I told them to put more inspirational stories about COVID-19 survivors to spread hope in the world. They wanted to feature my mom and brother's story on the news but my mom and brother declined. I do remember seeing an article on google about people putting Christmas lights in April to spread joy during the pandemic. I thought it was a beautiful idea. My HOA doesn’t allow it  but I got away with putting a Christmas wreath all year long.                                                                   As a result of our COVID-19 crisis I am so happy the way the community have united to help people. There are more food banks and COVID-19 homeless shelters. We have heroic health care workers and essential workers even hard working staff working at grocery stores for supply and demand. There have been businesses serve the community by offering discounts and free food to health care workers. This is a world wide pandemic and people have really come together to spread hope in our community.