Science, Religion and Family

By Renee Shay, Harvesting Thought

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My grandma Rose, who we called “Grandma Mac,” loved playing cards like Hearts, 500, even Kings in the Corner, any card game you could imagine, she was ready to play as soon as you walked through her front door.  As we played, she would tell me stories about her past.  They were not cautionary tales that one might come to expect from someone who lived through World War I, the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and the Great Depression, no, quite the opposite. 

As she reminisced with her past, she would often weave into her stories a singular theme about ensuring that I pursue my interests wherever the road may lead.  Her one caveat was always the same, to not be in a hurry for marriage and children.  She was a teacher by trade and a teacher by heart who lived her own truth and had an adventurous spirit despite all the challenges she had faced, and there were many.  She made me feel like anything was possible, that I could go anywhere and do anything I desired.

One event from her stories has always stayed in the back of my mind.  It was about a time in her life when she had moved across the country by train from Aberdeen, South Dakota to Yakima, Washington for a teaching job.  She would have been around 26 years old, and the year was 1918.  It must have been remarkable for a young woman at that time to adventure off on her own in pursuit of a teaching position so far from everyone she had known. 

World War I was in its fourth year and swallowing up her would-be suitors from small towns across America who were eager to join the fight.  She was a beautiful woman and sure had some men like my handsome grandfather actively courting her through countless love letters and invites to see him in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where they had first met while she was visiting her sister Julia in 1916.  His quest to secure her love did not stop her from moving in the opposite direction in pursuit of her teaching career.  She had a determination to get out, see the world, pursue her own interests, and kept my grandfather waiting in the wings for years.  [“My Dear Rose…,” Letters from Thomas P. McNamara to Rose Irene Sieh: 1916:1924 by Nancy McNamara]

As one war was winding down overseas another was ramping up at home and almost sabotaged her adventure, it was the 1918 Influenza Pandemic where schools, churches, and businesses had to close.   She was boarding a room from a doctor and his wife when they became sick and had to quarantine in their own bedroom.  She was the only one available to care for them, there was no other choice.  She had to take their fever-soiled linens that they set outside their door, wash them by hand and set them back by the door.  She cleaned bed pans and met their every need to help them survive while trying not to get the deadly sickness herself. 

She was not a nurse by trade, she was a teacher, it must have been difficult for her, but I never recall her talking about being scared or feeling homesick.  The pandemic became just another one of her stories within her larger adventure about living in Washington that she was eager to retell to her grandchild over a game of cards.  I never thought I would find myself dealing with a global pandemic one hundred years later that is now impacting my own generation.  I am hoping to do the same as her, be courageous and helpful to those in need but survive to tell the tale, though without a doubt, my audience will be quite different than hers. 

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When the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) took the world to its knees back in the spring of 2020 the United States (U.S.) government leadership had been forced to admit that the world had an epic crisis on its hands.  People were sick and dying, economies were impacted, and leaders were trying to hide the truth.  Stock markets crashed, many businesses like restaurants were forced to close, people lost their jobs and that had put further strain on everything from supplies, to testing and medicines needed to combat the crisis. 

I had already been teleworking from home on a few days as part of my normal workweek and was at home when we got word to not come back to the office.  The boss’s wife was exposed to the virus so that set the ball rolling to have everyone stay home that could work from home.  I welcomed the news that we could continue remote work for convenience’s sake while also being fearful of contracting the disease myself due to being at considerable risk of severe illness from the virus.  I had gone into my office one last time to gather some things that day and did not go back in from that point on for over a year. 

Grocery store shelves emptied in a matter of hours and days as word further spread that our country was shutting down.  It was quite eerie to be walking through Walmart seeing empty shelves, especially essential isles for things like rice and beans.  There were rushes on basic goods that created things like toilet paper shortages.  Apparently, no one wanted to run out of toilet paper, myself included.  When I found camping toilet paper at stores like Menards or Home Depot that others did not seem to find, it was gold! 

I stocked up on all sorts of emergency food and supplies, turning my camper that was stored in my backyard into an emergency mobile unit, ready to leave the city at the first sign that society lost control of the situation.  My safe place would have been to head out of the Twin Cities to my oldest brother Tom’s home in northern Minnesota.  On one run to Menards for some new camping supplies (i.e. tent, cots, more toilet paper, meals ready to eat) the young man checking me out at the register asked me if I were going to live off-grid.  He was not wrong as that was what I was prepared to do if it came to that, and these supplies were backups to my camper backup.  I was prepared.  

It could have been my asthma, spring allergies, a cold, or Covid-19 as I had most all the symptoms at the same time the news of pandemic kicked off.  I had difficulty breathing, fatigue, headache, fever, and scratchy throat, though these are common for me to get when I get sick.  I was unable to even work from home at one point as my head was in such a fog.  Again, that can happen when you have a cold or flu, but this seemed worse than most other times I have been sick. 

I visited urgent care at least three times over the course of several weeks fearing the worst.  The clinic staff would greet me in the parking lot and take my temperature before I was allowed to enter the building.  I had to put masks over my mask and gowns on before I was led to a room.  The scenes each time, with protocols getting more stringent, were something out of a sci-fi movie with patients, doctors and nurses wearing shields, masks, gloves, gowns and booties, everyone covered head to toe. 

Testing for the virus was initially sparse and if you did not need to be hospitalized, they did not test you.  I eventually received some antibiotics because after some bloodwork the doctor discovered that I was fighting some type of infection, could have been bacterial but it was surely not just a cold.  The fog eventually lifted, and I got better in a few weeks with the help of rest, time, and the medication. 

The months that followed, the federal, state, and local governments placed more restrictions on people’s movements, and on mask wearing to help reduce the spread but as they did that, economies struggled, but people still died.  Hospitals were overrun, people were turned away for routine surgeries or illnesses, and patients lined the halls where they had to wait for hours before receiving care.  Emergency care was monitored state-wide, and many reached their capacities.  Doctors and nurses got sick and died.  In some states like Texas, makeshift morgues were made from freezer trucks at some hospitals to help deal with the bodies.  Our worse fears were realized, we were in the middle of an unstoppable global pandemic and to add to this great tragedy, many people died without their loved ones by their sides to say goodbye. 

The U.S. federal government tried to bail out businesses with loans and sent stimulus checks out to people to keep the economy alive while scientists worked to create and rollout vaccines to combat the virus as quickly and safely as possible.  The economy became a hot mess as we tried to return to a new normal. 

Inflation has been running out of control due to global supply chain issues, so the U.S. Federal Reserve is trying to pull back the reigns by increasing interest rates while people are still struggling to meet basic needs for food and shelter.  The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s reign of terror on people of Ukraine is putting further strain on the world’s economy with oil, gas and food prices skyrocketing making more difficult for the U.S. to get their fiscal crisis in order.  It remains to be seen how well we fair in this monetary cycle and whether we end it in a recession or not.

The virus continues to mutate and is labeled with fancy new names like Omicron or subvariants like BA.4 or BA.5.  Certainly, we do not know the long-term effects of getting the disease regardless of variant and regardless of new treatments.  The scientists continue to create vaccines and booster shots; these are the game changers.  Pharmaceuticals like Remdesivir are approved for use for a treatment option.  Other drugs like Paxlovid are available, though is not yet fully tested and approved, only through an emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

We have seen 1,024,611 deaths just in the U.S. and on average, over 373 die each day due to Covid-19.  There is no sign of this pandemic ending anytime soon as the virus continues to mutate which will mean more will get sick and more will die before it ends.  I have personally known several people, co-workers, family, friends, and friends’ family members who have been hospitalized or died over the past few years from this disease.  [Statistics on July 30, 2022 – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – covid.cdc.gov] 

People are still dying in the U.S. because they have not taken the warnings serious enough, chose not to get vaccinated or boosted as these tools became available because of political misinformation or religious reasons.  Some are still dying because they are vulnerable, poor and lack access to quality nutrition and health care and some others if exposed will get extremely sick or die because they have other serious health issues. 

One will never know the truth as to why the U.S. has seen more reported illnesses and death related to this virus than the rest of the world, but we do know many needlessly died here because they ended up on the losing side of cultural, religious, and political Darwinism.  If you remember how this began, our leader was not willing to tell us how bad it was, people died due to his delayed response, then you know how this has or will end for many fools still trying to carry his torch.

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We all have those voices in our head, whether they are echoes from politically motivated speech we heard on a 24-hr news cycles or something else like how you tell yourself, “Oh, it just a cold,” “oh, you are tired, just need some rest,” but sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry.  Not only for you but for your loved ones or for others that may not fare so well if you were to expose them to a deadly disease.  I was not feeling well recently, I tried to ignore it for a day, then took another home test, lost count over the years how many now, it was negative.  Great, I do not have it, I can work and be around people, but I will wear my mask again.  A day and a half later, still not feeling well, tested again, this time positive for the coronavirus.  I took two distinct brands of home tests to be sure, yep Covid-19, it was obvious. 

My heart sank a little while having to text four other adults in my household, some downstairs busy getting ready to go to work, that I am upstairs with Covid-19.  I had to call my boss and tell him I was sick, even too sick to telework.  Had to think back to every encounter I had had in the last several days so I can figure out who to warn.  The worst thing for me was that my brother, his wife, and their daughter, who was home from college for the summer, were all getting on a plane in five days to start their two-week vacation to Hawaii.  The last thing they needed was a virus!  My family immediately went into what I would call at this point a post-traumatic virus protocol, they started sanitizing everything in the house and wearing masks everywhere in it.  I then began the recommended five-day quarantine.

I went to an emergency room in Santa Cruz that same morning because I was experiencing shortness of breath and felt awful.  I waited outside in a tent for a few hours, even trying to lay sideways in a chair at one point to get comfortable until I could be seen.  After my initial meeting with the ER doctor, he ordered an x-ray of my lungs and I then had to wait some more.  Thank goodness the EKG was fine, my lungs were clear, and vitals were good.  His recommendation was to get treatment for the disease because I am at elevated risk of severe illness, age, weight, asthma, but he was worried the antiviral drug Paxlovid might not be the best option due to potential interactions with other medicines I take.  He recommended I get a monoclonal injection to help fight the disease instead. 

I received a call that same night from my primary doctor who wanted to check in on me.  He thought Paxlovid would be a better option, was less concerned about side effects so we agreed to change my treatment plan.  My pharmacy filled the prescription immediately and my sister-in-law picked it up with only minutes to spare before they closed for the night.  I wish healthcare worked like that every day for everyone, not the emergency room part and waiting for hours, but the doctor calling me, the pharmacy filling the prescription right away, and did I mention the medication was free, those parts?

I think back to the couple that my grandma took care of when they quarantined in their bedroom and remind myself of how spoiled I am in our modern time.  It is quite strange having your family leave coffee, water, and meals by your door just as my grandma did for those she cared for.  My dog Night Sky was by my side the whole time, getting room service too because he would rather be in the room with me than not.  My brother bought me my favorite cereal, which is Lucky Charms though not sure if he intended to be ironic.  Even though I did not have an appetite, my family fed me.  My sister-in-law cooked me spinach and egg omelets, hamburgers, and tater tots for dinner, brought me giant bowls of cereal and my roommate delivered coffee every morning, popcorn and peanut M&Ms upon request, what more can a person ask for.  I had all the modern conveniences available to me like a Smart TV, I-Pad, Apple Phone and Dell computer, though mostly of little use because I was not feeling well, but having a family to care for you, that was what made the difference.

I am also incredibly grateful for the science that has went into fighting this deadly disease and if not for the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine, J&J booster and then the Moderna booster, for the treatment of the CDC Emergency Use Authorization of Paxlovid, I am not sure what would have happened.  Feeling like I have a bad cold with a deeper than normal fog in my brain verses ending up in a hospital or worse a morgue?  I will trust science all day every day.   

I am disappointed in myself for getting the disease after two years of socially distancing, being hypervigilant with hand sanitizer and wearing masks.  I can make guesses as to who I got the virus from, but I do not know for sure.  I do know I had let my guard down recently, slower to put a mask on in my office when someone entered and stopped wearing masks outside work altogether, when mask restriction at work or in the county were lowered.  I am confident that I got the virus because of reducing my mask wearing, the one thing I had control of.  

Science, religion, and family could have something to do with me being alive today though I tend to believe that science is tangible therefore more believable than religion and I know the power of family as I have lots of evidence of that in my family.  I have no way of knowing how the vaccine, being double boosted, taking Paxlovid, all prevented me from getting seriously ill though I do believe they did because of the empirical evidence that is now being gathered compared to people not using these things.  People said prayers for me, I do not know if those helped and have no proof that they do but I do appreciate them.  My families care for me along with science is proof enough for me that science and family matter.

I recently read one of my grandfather’s courtship letters to my Grandma Mac that was dated December 11, 1917, in it he wrote, “so you are going to Washington you think to teach.  Well, it will make it nice for the people of Washington but not so nice for the rest of us.”  He talked about how he wished he could head west to see her off from her home in Aberdeen, South Dakota, but his father was sick so he was to be stuck in his “neck of the woods for some time to come” because there would be too much work for the hired hand if he were to leave.  He talked about the war going on and stated in the letter, “had a dance in New Richmond for some of the boys who are going to the war.  Gee but I would like to be going, all the fellows from New Richmond are gone or going.”  And he wrote about one of the fellows that was killed so he knew full well the dangers of adventure yet felt he was missing something. 

War and death went hand and hand for my grandparents, millions of people died between the war and pandemic across the globe.  My grandfather also wanted to get out and experience the world despite the risk.  He would have too had it not been for his feelings about family obligation at home to care for his ailing father and take care of the family farm.  He said another farm boy his age was in the same predicament.  I am sure he was effective in helping his father and there came a time when my grandma had to return home to Aberdeen to care for her mother years later, with two kids in tow.  Each one had a deep sense of wanting to experience the world but there was also a recognition of a time and place for it.  My grandma was fortunate enough to cease on the opportunity when she had a window to do so.   

Grandma Mac’s advice to me was that marriage and having children could wait, to get out there and experience the world first then settle down.  Both my grandparents shared the same respect for family yet shared this same curiosity for the world, though sounds like my grandma was able to fulfill it more than my grandfather.  I regret to say I never asked her who gave her this advice but having read this letter from grandpa, I believe it might have been everything happening around them at the time, that it was not a person but a thirst for adventure that called them.

As stated, she was from Aberdeen South Dakota, not a place that is very well known and one might think a young girl growing up in rural America would not be brave enough to adventure outside of it, but she did.  When I think about my own childhood with similar thoughts of getting out of the small town, it now makes sense to me, it was not a person, it was a place.  Without being able to ask her now, I do know from her stories and advice that she had a thirst for a bigger world and my guess is the railroad was her ticket out.  It came to her town about a decade before she was born and by the time she became a young lady, the prairie land surrounding her became known as, “Hub City,” with several routes heading in all directions likes spokes on a wheel, she just had to pick one.  [Brown County South Dakota – https://brown.sd.us – for educators]

The railroad gave her the freedom to go anywhere she wished.  It was the benefit of technology, arduous work and innovation that led her to first meeting my grandfather in Wisconsin while visiting her sister, and it was her mode of transportation to head all the way out to Washington for her teaching job, then back to Saint Paul, Minnesota for more teaching jobs.  By 1921 she eventually married and settled down on my grandfather’s farm in rural Wisconsin, teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Stanton Township.  They went onto raise eight beautiful and amazing girls on that farm, my mother being the youngest. 

My grandma had numerous challenges later in her life like almost losing her youngest daughter, my mother, to a ruptured appendix around age 10, who had become bedridden for a year while recovering.  Or having to give one of her children away to a sister to take care of because there were one too many mouths to feed and then letting go of their independent life on the farm and moving to town because they could not make it.  My grandfather died in 1958, and she never remarried, he was her true love.  She went onto live 32 more years of life without him.  No wonder she longed for the days when her life was simpler, freer, less incumbered and the risk to oneself was less complicated.  While the joys of family are immense, so too are the obligations and sorrows.  Her generation knew that all too well.

She was not dealt the best of times, the best of life but she ended up giving me the best gift a grandkid could have ever ask for and that was a thread of safety woven throughout my entire life, no matter where I roamed, and it helped guide me through many challenges.  She taught me to be curious about the world, never stop learning, that I was free to do and go wherever I wished, to take whatever path, paved or not, that I choose to take and that she will love me no matter what and I could carry that feeling wherever I went, and I have. 

Of all the things she lived through, she also lived decades of her life with rheumatoid arthritis, crippling and deforming her hands and feet.  How very painful that must have been, but she never let on to any of it.  If you had the privilege to sit down with her for a quick game as I did many times in my life, you would know her strength by her insistence that when it was her time to deal, she would shuffle her own deck and deal her own cards!

Photo credit – Rose Irene Sieh painting of Mount Rainier, Washington State