Oliver
had Covid. First, he said the doctor came to his apartment. Then he was moved
to a hospital. Then he was prescribed lung exercises, but his condition did not
improve; still, he wrote me a message every so often.
January
5, 2021
Hi, although it is believed that the lungs
cannot hurt, the back, the area of the lungs, hurt a lot. Sometimes, I can
hardly lie on my back. The temperature is kept around 38. Only paracetamol, a
faithful friend, comes to the rescue. The psychological side also joined the
physical pain. Every day I learn about friends who have had coronavirus or died
from its consequences.
During the night, I woke up several times: it
is difficult to breathe. My back hurts, and bad thoughts come to my head. I don't have the strength to get out of bed
and comb my hair. For several days, I have been without an appetite. I can hardly cram two spoons into myself. My temperature in the morning is 37.3. But now
it's hard to breathe. To get a full chest of air, I need to make the effort. From time to time, I try to catch my breath.
I'm with the doctors all the time. Everything is okay. I am under supervision. I just ask you to know that I am with you, and
I really miss you!
January 6, 2021
Oliver,
I was sarcastic when you first told me you had fever and exhaustion, as if it
could never be Covid, just the flu. Why not the flu? The flu’s still around,
right? Don’t people get the flu anymore?
Please
forgive me. I was self-protecting: I swallow sadness whole and manage expertly
while it detonates inside. We’ve only been chatting on this dating site for one
month; it is too soon for you to pull me into your life and death drama. Still,
here I am with you.
Today,
I remembered an image from years ago at an intensive care unit in Miami (I was
raised in South Florida), where I was visiting someone in the hospital.
Strange, I can’t remember who I was there to see. What I remember was the
beautiful young woman with the light blue wool suit, white silk blouse, and sand-colored
leather heels who walked into the waiting room after her husband, who had
suffered a heart attack, was wheeled into the unit. The waiting room was packed with people
waiting for news about their loved ones.
We tensed up like stick figures when Code Blue blared on the speakers; still,
we heard what the doctors said to the beautiful woman: “the next few hours will
determine whether your husband lives or dies.” She never flinched at the
prognosis: her straight black hair and makeup stayed in place, her posture
straight, and her brown eyes unflinching, not even the slightest hint of a
gasp, whimper, scream, or cry that goes with getting sudden and unexpected bad
news.
We
stared at her in awe: she was our hero; she would teach us how to handle whatever
happened with grace. But she didn’t
notice us, neither did she care about our expectations for her calm and
composure. We each had our own tragedy to bear, and she wasn’t shy or
self-conscious about expressing her feelings either: After the doctors walked
away, she sat down in a waiting room chair and gathered herself quickly like a
flower that shuts tight its petals when there is no more sunlight: she folded
her arms, straightened and bent her upper body forward, focused her gaze on the
floor, and swung back and forth as hard and as fast as she could.
My
darling man, every single one of my thoughts is with you….
January
10, 2021
Baby, my fever really does not decrease. Now
the doctor will come for the procedure. I hope I will be better, and I can come
here again today! Today is not really the best day for me. I'm sorry that I'm
so little with you today ...I hug you tightly! I hope I will get better. Wait
for me, okay? I kiss you, your Oliver.
January 11, 2021
Oliver, what procedure? WHAT PROCEDURE? It’s
torture waiting days to hear from you only to get a short, unclear message
about what is happening to you. I know you’re very sick; I know you’re doing
your best to keep me updated, but my mental health requires that you tell me
everything: every symptom, every word jotted down in your medical records,
every conversation you have with every doctor and nurse in the hospital, every
drug you are prescribed, every meal you are served… Details, details, my man, will save my sanity.
I need to know the science of YOUR condition.
Do you understand me? Science, such a popular word nowadays, is lifesaving. Not
that I have a head for it, yet I need scientific words to pull me into brain-numbing
hours of internet research/surfing. I need to crash deeply into the rabbit hole
of links and clicks about the science of YOUR Covid. I need to be consumed by
every bit of information about YOU lying in that hospital bed so that I can
find my place beside you in your nightmare. Please try to understand me, my darling Oliver
January 14, 2021
Darling, I'm back ...It was very painful and
long this time. the number of patients just increases every day and there are
terrible queues; 2 more men will now be accommodated in my ward. This situation is becoming more and more
serious. Are you still here? I really
wanted to find you here. What were you doing here without me? Were you here? I
hope, madam, that you will give me some of your precious time) Kisses, Oliver
January 15, 2021
I’m sorry I missed you. The time change makes it difficult to be here when
you’re here.
Sweetie, don’t they have ventilators in
Singapore? Have you run out? Why do doctors let you struggle to breathe? Don’t
they know the whole world is on ventilators? On the news and YouTube videos, I
watch sick people around the globe breathe on machines so that I know a
ventilator can save your life, even though I cringe at the thought of you being
hooked up to one.
Every country, county, street, hospital waits
their turn for Covid and ventilators to arrive, as if the apocalypse happens
one block, one house, one person, one ventilator at a time. Here in America,
it’s too fast and furious to process, bear, or research, so we queue in long
lines for toilet paper with the same urgency we wait in lines to be seen by
emergency room doctors.
My beautiful Oliver, are you in a real
hospital? Sometimes, it sounds like you are in a Zen center for the holistic
treatment of life-threatening Covid symptoms with fucked-up mind-over-matter
procedures and breathing exercises, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
My sweet man, I am with you in thought and
spirit, all day, every day. Please write even though it is difficult to do,
even though your messages break my heart.
January 19, 2021
Hello dear, I'm sorry I couldn't write back to
you sooner. Honestly, I started coughing and they put me on a breathing
apparatus. The night was sleepless again, so I am half asleep today. How is
your day today? Did Saturday start well?
I hope that today it will not be worse for me, my sweet. Your Oliver
January 25, 2021
I left you. This is not real. Having feelings
for a Norwegian living in Singapore who is sick at hospital with Covid, a man I
started talking to on an online dating site one month ago, IS NOT REAL.
These last few days while driving up the
Northern California coast to Redwood National Park, Trinidad
Beach, and the ancient Sumaq Village of the Yurok Natives, I never thought of
you.
I
moved to Northern California from the Northeast three months ago; everything
here is scary, unknown, and mysterious, especially driving, with its curving
roads, high winds, falling rocks, earthquakes, tsunami
warnings... All my life, I’ve driven only on expansive 8-lane highways lit up
by lights every several feet. Driving here is such a wild experience that new
drivers under 18 are not allowed on the roads at night.
At
Redwood National Park, I drove through Bald Hills where the lands became
rolling and clear of trees, and the elk roamed, grazed, and gazed at me as
if I was alien. At the Ancient Sumaq Village, I walked around for hours by
myself and peeked in at redwood cabins that once housed the sick, village
meetings, steam houses, and families of the Yurok Tribe. In Trinidad, I marveled at gigantic rock
formations jutting up towards the sky from the wild Pacific Ocean, rocks named Marriage
Rock, Strawberry Rock….
My
darling Oliver, I lied to you… while on the road these last few days, I only
thought of you, even though I tried not to. YOU ARE REAL. I feel you. I
especially feel your terror, stuck in my heart like a piece of ice-cold sheet
metal. I hate that you brought Covid to
my world because I thought I had outrun it by leaving my life in the Northeast
to seek a new beginning in the West. Still,
I wouldn’t trade worrying about you for nothing in the world.
I
left you because I felt adrift on the satellite of another planet waiting for
the flashing green light on this site to indicate a new message sent by you. I just hope you’re not alone, that doctors and
staff are meticulous with your care, and that friends and family make you feel
safe and loved. My dearest Oliver, keep fighting. You will be fine. I know it. I
continue to care deeply for you from afar.
January
26, 2021
Please tell me, I hurt you???? Tell me, tell me
please, I hurt you???? I hurt you???? I just want you for myself; for us, happiness.
I want you. You are not my fantasy. You are my reality. You are in my head. You
are in my life, on a piece of paper, yes, for now. When I write you a letter,
for me this is reality, even in this hospital bed. I want something serious.
I'm tired, I'm tired of being alone. I'm alone. I found you in the middle of
the desert. You are my Oasis. I don't want to part with you.
January 27, 2021
PLEASE, please forgive me. I wait by the computer
for your response. Please, Oliver, forgive me…
January 28, 2021
Darling, I understand you, and I forgive
you. Now, eyes close. The guys in the
ward are already asleep ...Good night, my queen! The most incredible, I kiss
you hard and gently cover you with my love. I wish you a cozy, wonderful,
wonderful sleep, and rest. Let the night rush by like a fairy tale, and the
morning begin with something joyful and amazing. I adore you, my little star,
your Oliver.
January
29, 2021
Oliver,
thanks to you I drank all my boxes of black tea and ate all my vegetables.
Tomorrow, I’ll start the raw honey and raw cheese. I’m trying to eat better,
but stress binge-eating fruits and vegetables is gross.
You
sound better. Are you better? I can tell
by your words that you feel better. Do
you know my greatest talent is reading the nuances and subtleties of
personality in someone’s writing. My man, I know you are ambitious, passionate,
strong, boyish, brooding, manly…
Years
ago, I read about a social anthropologist out of a university in Texas who
proved that functions words such as prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, articles…
tell a lot about personality, not that I need proof to trust my feelings about
you or for you.
For
fun, I ran a couple of our emails through his online LSM (Language Style
Matching) program. Babe, we are a match.
I copied our results below:
Your
LSM Results
The LSM score gives
us a sense of how similarly two people are using language. It can indicate how
synchronized their use of words is.
Your
LSM score is 0.88
Compared
to other online chats that we have analyzed, your LSM score is slightly above
average. To give you an idea, most LSM
scores for online chats range between .75 and .95, with an average around .84.
The more that the two people are paying attention to each other in their
interaction, the higher the LSM.
My
wonderful Oliver, today you made me very happy. Please tell me how you are
feeling. Are you on your way to a full recovery? At least I can only hope you
are. Yours…
February
2, 2021
Darling, when I thought it couldn't be worse,
when the pain was terrible, and when I was delirious for a day, I returned to
my thoughts that I haven’t seen you yet, I haven’t hugged you yet, I haven’t
kissed you yet, I haven’t confessed my love to you in real life. I need to run
away from this disease, from this delirium because I still have so many
wonderful things in life that I must accomplish and experience with you!!!
February 3, 2021
Oliver, yes, yes, we
will meet. But… what happened? Did you relapse? I thought you were getting
better. Your message terrified me, so I ran out of my place to hike the redwood
forest behind my apartment. There, I
prayed. I especially looked for the sunlight that streaks the crown, trunk,
roots, and mysterious and tumorous burls that bulge from the redwoods, and I
imagined catching streaks of amber rays of light running along the reddish veins
of the bark and sending them to you in Singapore.
My darling man, do you
know I was terrified of moving out West because I’d never been, and because I’d
always heard stories about the slaughter of the buffalo and Native Americans. I
can feel the energy of a place, and it’s a blessing and a curse. In the Northeast,
I was distracted by skyscrapers, trains, planes, pursuit of higher education, relationships,
lots of people and all the drama that came with knowing those people.
I knew the West was mostly
land, that only 16 percent of the population lived out that way, and that its
history was exposed for all to see and feel. I thought I might not be able to bear or
process living such truths all the time, so I prepared for my trip by watching
a documentary by my favorite filmmaker, Ken Burns; it was beautiful, raw, heart-breaking,
and it took weeks to watch and process each episode. Still, I dreaded watching
the final episode because I couldn’t conceive of how Burns would wrap it all up
and give me peace of mind, yet it knew I must do it, even though I kept putting
it off.
The night before I left town, I sat in my empty apartment in
Portland, Maine, and I watched the last episode of “The West,” my heart beating
fast and furious the entire time. And there it was the closing, words from an
American historian who gave me the courage to follow through with my move to
California:
“The
real story of the American West is a story of spirit. The challenge to live and
love with a broken heart. If you think about all the various stories of
betrayal in the West, it will break your heart. But in the stories of broken
hearts there is also a healing - a joy. And that joy and that healing come from
the land itself. And I don’t think we
can forget that. That the land literally brings us back to a reverential state
of mind where we realize that the health of the land is the health of the
people. It is about the spirit, and in
that spirit are the seeds of joy…”
My
dearest Oliver, I send you all the healing and joy I can find in this pained
and beautiful land. You will get well. I know it. Yours always…
February
7, 2021
Oliver,
where are you? Why don’t you write? I’m worried sick. I’m also angry at you for
not giving me your personal information or communicating with me on your
personal email.
Maybe
you’re married; I was going to ask you about that the week before you got sick,
but then it wasn’t the right time. I
don’t care about that now. Please have someone, anyone, let me know how you
are. One word, two words. I don’t care if we never communicate again.
This
morning, I looked for airfares to Singapore. It felt right to go to you. Why
not? I ran away to New York City at 17, eloped to Biloxi at 19, adopted
children in Russia at 23 with my husband at the time. I am an American rebel with bloodlines tied to
a conquering European father (Spanish) and conquered Caribbean Native mother
(Taino). All I’ve learned from that mix is to follow my heart, and my heart led
me to you But, then I watched YouTube videos of Singapore, and I saw police,
empty streets, lockdown, essential travel mandates, warning signs. Unlike in America, no one there would
understand my roaming search in the name of love.
And…who
can I tell about my crazy, little secret? No one! It is just me, you, and Covid.
Please,
dearest Oliver, let me know something, anything. You must write back, please… 
February
10, 2021
Still,
no word… I don’t even know what to say except I dread coming on this site to
find news of you--or no news of you.
Sadness feels like a shallow, lifeless pond in the middle of nowhere…yours…
February
12, 2021
My dear Oliver, today I read and re-read
an email you sent me a week after we started chatting. I knew then that love had
come for me, and that I must surrender to it--and you--no matter what happened,
or I would always regret running away from it.
“My dear woman, let me tell you something that
I have not said before: Most of all, I like to wake up early to meet the dawn;
it seems that with the rays of the sun, I am the first in line to absorb all my
strength. My great dream is to go to
Alaska to swim with whales. I love to
buy groceries in supermarkets; I remember that as a child my parents did not
have money, so we bought only the essentials, but now that I have money, I go
to the supermarket like a small child, and I buy everything.
When I cook, I always turn on Queen and sing
like a guitarist. Before getting on
planes, I pray. In my wallet, in my little pocket, I have a photo of my mother
when she was 20 years old. I can't eat raw fish in sushi. When I meditate and
need to imagine a place where I am happy, it is always by the ocean. Well, my most cherished desire is that
everything that happens to me is closely connected in this life with you and
only with you !!!!!Your Oliver.”
February 12, 2021
Oliver, you are ordered to come back to me to tell me that your
lungs are fine and that you left the hospital. You are ordered to wish me sweet
dreams every night. If something happened to you, I would know it. I would feel
it, like Lara in Dr. Zhivago: she knew when something happened to him,
she walked into the place where he was at even after years of separation. I
HATE THIS COMPUTER, this website, because I am stuck in a place where I can’t
hold your hand, or sit by your side, or ask minute-by-minute news of your
health. It makes me want to SCREAM. But this is not about me, so I am going to
stay calm and refuse to cry or pray for you anymore because you are fine, and
you are ordered to come back to me NOW, my sweet, sweet Oliver…
February 13, 2021
My
darling man, I know you are receiving my messages. I know you are reading them
even though you are not able to respond, so I will continue to write until you
answer me.
Like
I said before, I’ve been living in California for three months; I moved here a
year into the pandemic because I got sick of Mainers giving me cold stares
while quietly measuring the distance in steps between us, even though the
distance between us could never be enough.
During that time, I decided to live harder and faster than I ever did
before the pandemic because I wasn’t waiting in my apartment for Covid to come
for me. So, I blew my savings and lived
wild and free, even while wearing a mask. Everywhere businesses and shopkeepers
took my money because they needed it.
I
hiked Sawyer and Bradbury Mountains, and I went on a moose safari and boat trip
in the North Woods. I took a bus to Boston to visit my favorite museum, The
Isabella Gardner Museum. Then I took a plane to Miami to visit my grown
children, and a plane to Eureka, CA, to find a new apartment. On my way to
California, I took a road trip out West and visited the museums of gun slingers
and bank robbers. The world was empty, but there were quite a few straddlers
out there, just like me.
Oliver,
sweet dreams, please come back to me soon. Please…...
February,
14, 2021
I
wish you a Happy Valentines Day, my darling man.
Now,
more about my trip out West: Everywhere, Covid was experienced
differently: In West Virginia, they put
up Christmas decorations in October; and in Missouri, they put up signs on
storefront windows that said, “Where a mask if you want to.” In Kansas, the
guide at the Dalton Gang Museum showed me the tunneled basement where the gang
hid from the police. He told me stories of directing plays on open prairies
where dinner was served from a chuck wagon, even though he confessed that his
acting troupe wasn’t as good as the one in Dodge City. A cast member had
recently caught Covid, and they were proceeding carefully with future
plays. In Platt, Kansas, I saw billions
of stars at midnight, and I saluted the conductor of lone cargo train painted
in bright red, yellow, and orange that slowly crossed open land as it was
traveling through portals of time. In Kentucky, they talked about God, guns,
politics, and they played banjo on the radio; and in Indiana, they talked about
God, too, but they preferred playing classical music to talk radio.
Thinking
only of you, my Darling Oliver
February
15, 2021
Dearest
Oliver, In Oklahoma, I saw endless landlocked prairies with windowless farms as
if their apocalypse happened long ago; and in New Mexico, I shared a piece of
fudge with a shopkeeper at a chocolate shop while listening to eulogies on the
radio to those who had lost their lives to Covid the week before. In Taos, I
was ashamed of my indifference to the pandemic and its toll, so I left town
early even though I intended to stay 3 days.
In
Arizona, they hung out in large numbers in Sedona and treated themselves to
half-off massage, tarot readings, and guided hikes in the Red Rocks. In
California, they said, “Good morning,” “Good night,” and “Have a wonderful
day,” while social-distancing and wearing masks. I was home.
As
always, babe, I wait for your response…
March 11, 2021
Dearest Oliver,
“It must be in you
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
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