A few months ago I lost a good friend to COVID. He was in Florida, and was performing indoors, and caught it, and languished for a few weeks before he died. I had wished him a happy birthday a few months earlier. I’ve eulogies him in other spaces, but he was one of the nicest, smartest dudes I’ve ever known.

He was told by…someone…that the key to this thing was to catch Covid..THEN get the vaccine. That..turned out not to work out. Someone gave him shitty information, and he paid for it with his life. I went through the usual stages of grief, but I stayed longest on anger; why? Why in the hell did he take such bad information? Who? I was livid for days, avoiding my sadness with a justifiable emotional substitute.

So, fast forward a bit.

The year was..2000. I was in my first job out of college, and I fell in with a bunch of lower-rung people at a PR firm. Admin assistants, web designers in the age of Flash websites that did nothing. I call a lot of those people friends to this day, seeing weddings and kids and job changes; life changes.

One of those friends decided she “wanted to do her own research” on the vaccine. In the midst of all this death and disinformation, she wanted to…do her own research. I never knew when my texts would be returned, and silently cheered whenever she sent me a Instagram post or a YouTube link. I hoped she would stay okay, and saw no point in yelling at her; free will is a bitch, I guess.

So, she let me know that she had gotten her first shot a few weeks ago, and I was overjoyed. I began to create a bit easier; surely she’ll be okay in a month when she’d get her second shot.

But, no.

I texted her last weekend to say hello. and she said she wasn’t feeling well. She’d gotten her first shot, and was supposed to go in for the second one in a few weeks, but had developed difficulty breathing. I held my breath.

I hadn’t heard from her since, and I texted her this morning. All day, no response, and I really dreaded the worst. Thing is, I don’t know any of her people, so if something happened, I’d have no idea. The only clue I had that she was still with us was her texting me back.

So imagine my relief when I get a text from her this evening…but my spirits fell as I read it.

She was texting me from a gurney at the hospital. Covid pneumonia.

One shot is good, but not the protection from two.

I made sure to tell her that I loved her, that she’d be fine, and I’d wait to hear from her if she needed me. She responded that she would.

Now I wait. And hope some more. Because I won’t be able to take two text conversations in a year cut short by this gotdamned virus. I just can’t.