Vol. 20: Grief and celebration

Hey friends, a quick content warning - this newsletter is pretty heavy on the grief, and with so much happening in the world between Afghanistan, Haiti, the ongoing pandemic, and the injustices in the United States, please remember to take care of yourself and set boundaries if you need to. <3 

From March 2020 until I was fully vaccinated in April 2021, I was more socially isolated than many people I know. Partially this was due to privilege - both my fiancee and I have full time WFH jobs, stable housing, and don’t rely on public transportation to get to the grocery store or around town. I’m not immunocompromised so I had a choice to begin with. Beyond that, it was something I intentionally chose because I wanted to spend time with my Grandma without potentially exposing her. I was so nervous about getting her sick.

I had a handful of friends I would see outside, with masks. I drove to visit my Michigan family twice over the summer but when cases in Michigan rose in November and December, I spent the holidays without my parents or siblings for the first time in my life. I went to one brewery in November 2020 and then didn’t eat outside of my home until March 2021.

The pandemic is not over, yet I’m at a place where I’m not as judgmental of decisions that are made by people on social media compared to last year, and also more apt to spend time outside. Of course, there are safer decisions available, given the vaccines and what we know about outdoor transmission. But more relevant for me, my Grandma is dead, so my comfort zone is much wider.

It is hard and sad and awful that I spent the last year of her life not seeing my Grandma as much as normal because I was trying to protect her. I was so worried about losing her to COVID. I was cautious, anxious, and she died anyway. She died of unrelated causes but I think she would still be here if she hadn’t spent a full year indoors. She couldn’t do her weekly library and senior coffee hour at Dawson’s market on Wednesdays anymore, church went virtual, and Sunday dinners turned into FaceTimes or the occasional porch visit.

Last year on my birthday, she decided it was too hot to eat outside. She put an angel food cake with candles in front of me. I didn’t want to blow it out. She said it was okay, so I blew out the candles. That night, I could barely sleep with anxiety, thinking through all the interactions I had the two weeks prior, the grocery store, the unmasked person in the apartment hallway, fearful I had gotten her sick by blowing out my birthday candle.

This weekend, I’ll have my birthday without her, and in a couple months I’ll get married without her. On Sunday night, my mom gave me a necklace with a gigantic silver and turquoise fish pendant that Grandma had her set aside for my birthday when she first got sick in April. My Grandma was so incredibly thoughtful and loving. My mom made me angel food cake and we both cried.

So many people lost their loved ones to COVID-19, so many still are, and many of us had loved ones taken from us from the pandemic in other ways that we’re still processing. I'm still processing, and will be for a long time.

Book Drive Giveaway Update

As of this morning, we’re just 34 books away from my goal of 300 books donated to incarcerated readers by August 21. That means this community has given 266 books, surpassing the 2020 number of 246.

If you haven’t yet, please donate a book to LGBT Books to Prisoners or Free Minds Book Club. Perhaps this past year of social distancing, quarantine and isolation has reminded us just how unjust the prison system is and I really hope to remind folks that we need to affirm the humanity of ALL in society, particularly those trapped in the racist criminal legal system.

Please let me know when you donate, either via posting to your IG stories & tagging me, or emailing/DMing me if you’re a private account. And each book donated counts towards one entry for the prize of 5 titles from One World Books.

With love, Allison