In the last moment I remember from the beforetimes, I was sitting in our beautiful local art deco movie palace, one year ago this week. I was attending a fundraiser for the radio station that hosts a show I helped to create, Interfaith-Ish. The event featured a screening of a film about Fela, the iconic Nigerian musician, followed by cocktails and a DJ playing African music. I was anxious in the crowd, scanning my phone for covid-19 news updates. I knew this was a liminal moment. Everyone was on edge, whispering. No one was dancing, despite the great music.
I went home, and considered the emerging virus from the point of view of my understanding based on years as a science reporter for Newsweek and New Scientist. In those years, I interviewed Dr. Tony Fauci on a regular basis on the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine, before he was a household name. In the intervening decades, I had often given a comic spin to the story of Dr. Fauci returning my call one night, after work hours, and how I had to interview him while simultaneously breastfeeding a fussy baby.
So exactly one year ago today, drawing on that background knowledge, I created a protocol for my household that included no visitors in my house, no restaurant meals, no eating or drinking in groups, no movies or concerts or weddings or funerals. Friends mocked me at first, but then, in time, most of them followed suit. The world closed in on us that week, and we have not yet emerged. My protocol remains in place.
Interfaith family communities, of course, like all communities in the US, have suffered this year. We have suffered deaths from covid, deaths without proper ritual and the ability to grieve together, disability from long-haul covid, widespread and deepening depression, the suicides of young people, the brutal isolation of the elderly, job loss, hunger, the collapse of businesses, and the exacerbation of systemic inequality in a time of resource shortage.
I have felt privileged this year, relatively safe in my lockdown, since I can write from home. The truth is that my most persistent suffering has been from boredom and frustration. But isolation takes a toll on everyone. For the first time in my life, I went through a year without seeing any of my three siblings. There was no Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover, or Easter with any of my nieces or nephews. I did not get to attend my uncle’s funeral. I’m approaching my second covid birthday, a big one, and it will be restrained and constrained.
Yes, there have been silver linings, very pale silver linings, without much sparkle or shine. Interfaith families have found each other online, have been able to visit each other’s communities for the first time, sparking new ideas and new online groups. We have all learned some new skills for entertaining ourselves in isolation, new strategies for soothing anxiety, new appreciation for all the things we long to do, the people we long to see, when we finally reach the aftertimes.
All three of my younger siblings and both my young adult children have now been vaccinated, but not me. As a writer, I have been deemed the least essential member of my family. As the alpha, I find this comic, and I laugh a dark little laugh. Another humbling experience in this pandemic year. While I wait, I have gained weight. My greying hair curls long for the first time in decades. My pandemic puppy has grown up wild as a wolf, barely groomed, barely trained, suspicious of anyone who approaches. I am trying to stay still, stay safe, stay patient, and stay grounded enough to keep writing. I have no profound lessons to report. I am still here. Apparently, so are you. That is all.
Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.
Being Both 