Being Tested

Note: Usually the stuff I post here is devotional writing. This isn't. I just feel like posting it. And, hey, it's my blog, so I can do that if I want.

I didn’t need a test.

I’m careful. I stay six feet away from people and I use hand sanitizer like it’s going out of style.

Still … as an essential worker, out and about in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, I’m around people. I could endanger someone’s life by passing on this little virus that’s made such a big stir.

If I’m a carrier, it’s probably better to know, I admitted reluctantly.

Nervous about sounding ignorant, I called my doctor’s office, not sure what to ask.

In no time, I was transferred to a reassuring voice and scheduled for a coronavirus test.

The next afternoon, as instructed, I pulled up to the orange cones in the parking lot of Thunder Bay Community Health Service in Atlanta, the nose of my car facing an unpretentious black-and-white tent.

As instructed, I stayed in the car and waited my turn.

The nurse who came out to talk to me looked tired beneath her face shield and mask. Business had been non-stop all day, all week, she said. Her ears were sore from the mask’s elastic. Still, she was cheerful and kind as she explained what would happen.

It wouldn’t feel great, she said honestly.

Through the car window she handed me a paper mask covered in pastel flowers and didn’t laugh when I wasn’t sure how to put it on.

I wasn’t experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, the sickness caused by the coronavirus, but, if I did, I shouldn’t take ibuprofen, she said. Studies have shown it can make symptoms worse. Good to know.

There’s evidence that heat helps fight the virus, which lodges in the back of the throat -- so, she said, hot drinks work in your favor. Coffee, hot tea, or, she suggested, hot cocoa are on your side. OK by me.

She led me toward the enclosed tent, really a pop-up gazebo more suited for a wedding or family picnic than a medical center parking lot, with one black wall to protect patient privacy. I headed to the drawn-back makeshift doorway, feeling as though I’d suddenly stepped into a rerun of M*A*S*H.

Inside, there was mostly open space on parking lot cement, with the very notable exception of the big box in the middle of the tent.

Simply constructed of fresh-looking 2-by-4s and plywood, about 8 feet tall and 3 feet deep, the box was open in the back with a wall of Plexiglas in the front and a slightly-raised platform where the tired-but-kind nurse stood, holding an oversized cotton swab.

A wall of transparent acrylic between us, the nurse, in her open-backed box, put her gloved hands through two rubber-sleeved openings in the clear wall, much as though she was a scientist testing an unknown and potentially dangerous substance -- and I was the experiment.

As gently as she could, she inserted the cotton swab up one of my nostrils.

She had been right.

It didn’t feel great.

My brain couldn’t decide whether to shriek or giggle as the swab fished around in regions of my head that don’t usually receive that kind of attention. The process was mercifully quick, and I was given a moment to turn my head and cough into my mask, my sinus cavity still buzzing confusedly.

It was a two-sided test, and I had to gather my courage to offer my other nostril for probing. The nurse didn’t tell me if she used the same end of the cotton swab as in the first go-round, and I didn’t ask.

It seemed too quick, like there ought to be more to a test that was checking for a virus that has killed more than 50,000 people in the U.S. That was it, though, the nurse said, sliding the swab into a tiny tube. My sinus mucus would be shipped off to a testing facility, and results would be back in 48 hours.

I walked back to my car, head still gently protesting the invasion of its personal space, feeling like something had changed.

There are so many unknowns right now. Uncertainty has become the norm. And, to be honest, I’d gotten comfortable with not knowing, not with any certainty, whether I had been exposed to the virus that has been violently overturning the tables of almost every aspect of our lives.

In some ways, it’s easier to not know.

If you don’t know, you can lean on the incongruous comfort of uncertainty.

If you don’t know, you can hold fear at bay.

But, in little Atlanta, there’s a weary nurse who is spending her days sticking sticks up people’s noses because knowing makes a difference.

Facts can save lives.

In a day or two, the phone will ring, and I’ll know that I’m carrying the virus, or I’ll know that I’m not.

Either way, scary though it is, uncomfortable as I may become, it’s better to know than to not know.

Of that, I’m certain.

First published in The Alpena News on April 25, 2020

Always heartache, always resurrection

There ought to be lilies.

This is what Easter is supposed to look like: Rising in the dark, a sense of Something Special hovering in the silent house. Blackness through the kitchen window as the ham slides into the oven.

Alarm clocks buzzing, the kids turning in their beds with a humph before their consciousness grabs hold of the day and they sit up, rubbing their eyes.

Flowy skirt, shirt and tie, sleepy-awake smiles as the sky begins to brighten.

Car door slams; slams again; trot back inside for the forgotten colored eggs commissioned for the youth group casserole-and-sausage breakfast.

Church doors. Friendly faces, edged with undefined excitement in the pale light. Pastels, pinks and yellows, handshakes and warm voices as the eggs are dropped off in the kitchen.

And then … lilies. Tickling the nose, first, the scent of expectation. Then -- with a glorious “Ta-da!” -- white trumpets blaring, posing on pedestals, climbing a railing, flanking the altar, nodding encouragements and sincere greetings, potted lilies in purple and yellow foil wrappers wave to all who come.

Packed in pews, comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder, the regulars and the seekers and the tentative first-timers and the squirming children with their crayons and visions of jelly beans breathe in unison, palpable togetherness mingling disparate lives for an hour.

Amid the joyous enthusiasms.of the lilies, blended voices raise, eager, heart-full, as eyes moisten: “He is risen, indeed!”

The music swells and lifts, and together, they sing. Jesus Christ is risen today. I know that my Redeemer lives.

After, some stay for breakfast. Some head to family gatherings and hams and green bean casserole. Before they go, arms wrap around shoulders, hands clasp hands, conversations linger near the coat rack.

They go, finally, and the church is once again quiet. In the sanctuary, the lilies nod.

That’s Easter.

Except in a pandemic.

This year, there won’t be that first, exotic scent of lilies when church doors open. There won’t be families in their Sunday best, girls in taffeta dresses giggling between the grown-ups, white-haired parents proudly introducing grandchildren.

This year, there will be no youth group egg bakes, no children scrambling across church lawns to find plastic eggs tucked full of trinkets.

This year, there will be no one-voice-made-of-many rising to the ceiling, months of Lenten gloom giving vent to a thrilling, “Alleluia!”

A virus has taken away the Easter that should be.

It’s not fair, the heart cries. All of this. All of the change. All of the loss. The staying home. The looming fear. The masks. The deaths.

If ever we needed Easter, it’s now. Now, with homes and hearts besieged by anxiety.

We need anticipation, and hope, and a day being what it ought to be.

We need promises of a new life. We need death to be broken.

We need hugs, and music, and lilies.

About a week ago, during a quick, well-sanitized trip to the store, I bought a potted Easter lily.

It’s sitting on a table near my desk at work, its matte-finish trumpet flowers tooting a reminder that it needs to be watered.

You know what? Turns out, when you’re wrapped in the scent of Easter lilies eight hours a day for a whole week … they kinda stink.

There’s a picture we hold in our heads, I think, of Life, As It Should Be. If all were right, if life were fair, it would be like such-and-such.

The sun would shine. Our jobs would be secure. Our parents and children would be safe. Our hams would never burn, and our lilies would smell like resurrection.

It’s not like such-and-such for most of us, now, not when the world is topsy-turvy and the rules have all changed.

Frankly, though, even without the chaos of a major medical crisis, those pictures of a Right Life don’t hold true.

There’s always instability, to a greater or lesser degree. Fear and anxiety are always lurking, ready to jump into our lives whenever there’s a hole to fill. Days are gloomy, times are tough, projects and people are imperfect.

Lilies, as it turns out, kinda stink.

We need hope today. And we need it every day. We need reassurance in this troubled time, and we need it in every other time, too.

During tough days ahead, as now, as in all tough days of the past, there has been, there is, there will be hope. Reassurance. A place to lean.

The lack of an egg casserole can do nothing to change the fact of a Savoir dying and rising. A few fewer Easter handshakes may leave a hole in the day, but the whole of humanity is still extended a hand to which to cling, when the sun shines and when it rains.

I know that my Redeemer lives. I know that I’m not alone, even when times are tough. I know that Someone loves me, enough to die for me, enough to live for me, even though I’m far from perfect.

Everything is different.

But nothing has changed.

Alleluia.

Originally published in The Alpena News on April 11, 2020.