We asked readers to share the moment they realized the world was now different due to the pandemic. For some, it was the changes in day-to-day life: empty shelves at stores, the sudden closing of libraries and community centres, the empty streets. For others it was changes in travel plans and being forced into quarantine. Here is a selection of some of the replies we received. Some responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Nothing but carrots
I had been hearing more and more about COVID as March 2020 progressed but it really hit home when I went to the Thriftys in Fairfield toward the end of the month and the only vegetables that I could get were a handful of carrots. I understood then what it must have been like to live through rationing in WWII.
Alanna Wrean
Travel world in chaos
I vividly remember that unlucky day, Friday the 13th of March. Everyone in our travel agency was being inundated with calls from frantic travelers trying to get home, or people anxious to cancel upcoming trips. It was almost impossible to get through on the phone to any airlines or cruise lines to make arrangements. I spent four hours on hold to extend an insurance policy for a client whose flight home to Canada was suddenly cancelled. The travel world was in chaos! Usually on a Friday, our office celebrated the end of the week by drinking a glass of wine after work. I think we may have started early that day!
Lynn Arnold
So near yet so far
April 11, 2020. I was going to see my husband at Saanich Peninsula Hospice. I say “see” as that is all I could do: Look through the window, trying to have a conversation on a phone. The rooms there are lovely, all ground level, most with a garden view. His had a door to the outside. He was frail, confused and medicated. Trying to tug on the door to let me in.
“COVID,” I said. “COVID.” He shook his head and turned away, not really knowing why I wouldn’t just walk through the door.
After a few minutes, seeing him helped back to bed, I thought, I could not stand to stay, so close, yet so far. Walking back to the car on the outside perimeter of the hospice, I noticed many other family members peering through the windows, hopeful for a response, an acknowledgment.
I am grateful for the fabulous nurses who were there for my husband when he was upset and wanted to leave, and just begged to have me close again. Their patience and understanding is remarkable. My hope is that we never have to keep loved ones apart again, in the last moments of clarity.
I did get in to say my goodbyes, but I don’t know if he knew. He was not really there anymore.
Saskia Elias
End of a chapter in our lives
My COVID moment was when I got a phone call from a friend to tell me the library would be closing the next day. Her daughter worked at the library so had an alert to the pending closure.
This was horrifying news to me. I am a voracious reader and heavy library user. Reading was a significant daily activity that was surely only going to increase with my world locking down. No more volunteer hours, no more grandchild visits, no more book club. I am a single senior in a small bachelor apartment and don’t have room for a personal book collection so didn’t have many unread books on hand. And I am often delving deep into “studying” about different topics and made regular use of the inter-library loan service to get books not held by our regional system. Alas, no more books about Abraham Lincoln, my latest fascination.
I had just received notice that some book hold requests were in and ready for pickup.
So I dropped everything and ran to my local library branch to check out those books before they closed. I was delighted to find five books there for my checkout but knew they wouldn’t last long given the increase in my free time.
Kay Charbonneau
COVID-19 hits home
I had been on one of my fairly frequent visits to the local casino on March 14. I went with cash in hand and hope in my heart.
The previous Saturday I had won a nice jackpot so I was feeling pretty lucky. I did not win anything but had a good time playing my “lucky” machines, chatting with others and having a few cups of good coffee.
The next day I heard the news of COVID-19, that we all had to come home and stay home, and calamity, the casino shut the following day.
Thank goodness, better days are on the horizon, and kudos to everyone who made the past year safer and easier for us all.
Genie Carson
Back home to a changed world
Our COVID-19 moment was a slow and surreal one. My son and I being fanatic mountain bikers, set out March 13 for the Utah and Arizona desert, our annual pilgrimage. Friends were saying stay home, but we couldn’t be dissuaded. How bad could it be?
It was like we had entered the Twilight Zone as soon as we got off one of the last Coho sailings. Deserted highways, grocery stores with no stock, restaurants changing to takeout and closed-up camping. We still managed to make our way through two weeks of camping miles out in the desert and six days at a friendly mom-and-pop motel we know in Sedona. Eighteen rooms, three or four rooms occupied, with tacos, pizza and a somewhat-stocked grocery store nearby. The riding was phenomenal but very few people were out.
As we travelled home, any organized camping was unavailable and we were stuck with open spaces next to the highway often joined by fellow travellers heading for home.
The real moment hit as we arrived at the border in Osoyoos early March 28. Only vehicle there, with an agent asking us to back up and wait for her to get masked and gloved. We had arrived home to a changed world.
Randy Tannock
