Yesterday my 9 years old girl asked me: "Why do we live?" I said that I don't know and that if she finds it out, she should let me know.
She is worried about the Coronavirus even though I told her that children are not at risk. She is worried that her mom and dad can die. And because the stores don't have eggs.
Her worry is real because she sees things happening which never happened before. The schools are closed. The store shelves are empty. The numbers of dead people are increasing rapidly on worldometer.
We went to Walmart to get eggs and there were no eggs. With surprise and fear in her eyes she asked what is she going to eat? How can we survive without eggs?
She likes eggs a lot and eats them every day. Recently she learned to make scrambled eggs all by herself and she is very proud.
This is the first crisis she is witnessing.
For me this crisis is not the first.
Growing up in Russia, first half of my life was a non-stop crisis. Empty shelves, long ques and rationing - I saw it before. I spent many hours in those ques.
My parents were about 40 years old themselves during that time.
First there were empty shelves. Then there was the hyperinflation. I remember that I wanted to buy a pair of shoes and the price went from 5 to 25 rubles in about 2 weeks.
And there was always the background of never having enough of anything.
This background feeling of crisis has never left. The memory of empty shelves makes me to have a backup of household items at all times. I didn't have to go and buy the toilet paper when everybody was freaking out about it. We already had enough in storage for several months.
I had a feeling that if I relax too much, something bad will happen. For years I didn't let myself to relax. Just recently I started to try to relax. Did I relax too much?
I started to think that maybe I don't need to have so much toilet paper at home. That if we want to buy more expensive brats with cheese instead of those without cheese, we can. Only two months after we started buying brats with cheese, the Coronavirus hit.
Last time I relaxed too much was when we went shopping on one Saturday in January.
It was a nice sunny Saturday and we were returning form shopping. I got come earrings, some blouses and pants for work.
My girl got boots with chunky 3 inch heels. She practiced walking in those shoes in the store. It was a funny show for the cashier and other shoppers. It took her a few minutes to finally not walk with flexed knees like some kind of a bird. I told her that is she can walk in those shoes, I will buy them. She was very motivated. Finally she waked like a model, quite tolerable.
While watching this show I had a feeling that I am relaxing too much by buying her $35 shoes which she is not really going to wear much. She can't go to her clases in the elementary school in heels.
I classified those shoes as a fun toy and thought it will be OK.
Returning form shopping, while driving home in the car, I suddenly started to sing the funeral march.
I explained to my girl that it was a funeral procession music and it was always used in Russian funerals. I sung it loud to her. She said it sound like someone is crying really bad. Here is the link to this music on YouTube: Funeral march.
The funeral march stuck to me since then. I had it in my head every day.
I told about it to one colleague at work. He jokingly said that maybe he will die. I said: "Probably not. If this music stuck to me for two weeks, that must be something more important. It is either my close relative or lots and lots of people."
Now I think that maybe our way of life is dying. My comfortable life with little economic worries is being killed by Coronavirus. The funeral march is accompanying it.
I survived those horrible times in Russia and the things have gotten better after. It probably will happen again.
Maybe when the funeral march in my head disappears, the things will start getting better.
My girl called me at work today. I was not busy because all elective surgeries were cancelled due to the virus.
She said that she figured out why we live. " We need to see the world. We should go to the ocean, we should go to Ireland and other places and see the world."
I agreed with her and said that as soon as we can, we will go and see the world.
We planned a 2 weeks trip to Ireland in July.
It is not cancelled yet but it probably will be.
If it took China from the beginning of January till end of March to slow down and they still have restrictions for all incoming air travelers, it will take us at least as much time. Probably longer since we are trying to flatten the curve.
In USA it will probably extend to at least June. And if we succeed in slowing it down then July and August will be included.
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