karma police

nanaji

Chaotically typing out these words on my laptop, I sit in a room that has been left unoccupied for the better part of a year. It’s full of dusty volumes of physics research, cardboard boxes of personal belongings, and some bank statements. A room that used to be inhabited by my characteristically serene, dignified grandfather has now become my quiet retreat for thinking or simply resting.

The story starts with a disease that went undetected because it was too risky for my grandfather to visit a hospital during the pandemic. Over the next few months, he would be in and out of the hospital. During this period, my entire family (myself included) contracted COVID – news that hit me the day before my Euclid exam. I also took my final school exams in a secluded flat, where I was self-quarantined. Being away from my parents or not knowing what the next week held was thoroughly disorienting – and my memories of this period are just as haphazard as this room.

I wrote my AP exams a month after he passed away.

While I learned to be calm, resilient, and pragmatic all at once, I honestly cannot paint this experience as a positive. What can be said about my microcosm of a COVID experience can be said about our collective pandemic experience – it is what it is. We love, we hope, and we care – and it may seem to whittle away at us forever, but it’s also what defines us.