Memos from Quarantine #18: This is No Way to Say Goodbye

This past week was a sad one. I lost a good friend – my former brother-in-law – to illness, and I couldn’t break quarantine to attend his graveside service.

No, it wasn’t COVID-19 that claimed David, and this wasn’t one of those situations where he died alone after family members phoned in their farewells. Not that any conditions make it less of a loss.

I just find it incredibly sad that to do the right thing – to minimize risk to my family – I had to do what felt like the wrong thing and not drive across state lines for the burial.

David was a good man. He was a state championship soccer player in high school, and after college he followed his passion and became a career Maine lobsterman. He married my ex-sister-in-law nearly 40 years ago, they had two boys who grew into fine young men, and David was a terrific Dad to them.

I met him in 1987, soon after I started dating my ex-wife, and we became fast friends. We both loved our New England sports teams, so we watched a ton of games together. Played a lot of basketball in his driveway. And we spent much time just talking at holidays, on family vacations to Florida or the Caribbean, beach days in Maine or just nights out in Portland. He was the easiest guy to talk to, was always up for a new adventure, and he could always score you a couple of good lobster for your dinner party.

You ever read the original M*A*S*H novel by the later Maine author Richard Hooker? He coined a description in that book, “finestkind.” David was 100% finestkind.

I hadn’t seen much of David for the past decade or so. That’s one of the indirect losses of divorce. You don’t just divorce a spouse; you also lose a family and likely some friends. But I was still shocked and sad to learn of his death this past Tuesday, and I was honored when his widow Robin asked me to help write his obituary.

She also invited me to attend the burial service at a cemetery in Maine. But as much as I wanted to, that would have meant crossing the state border, where I’m supposed to self-quarantine for 14 days. It would have meant bucking the nation’s social distancing restrictions against gathering in groups larger than 10, and it would have put me in contact with far too many people outside my own household. I couldn’t in good conscience break all those rules and still tell the teenagers in my home that they have to comply to the letter.

Really hammers home what social distancing is about, and how it just flies in the face of all our human programming. We are social beings. We’re meant to be with other people and to draw strength from those connections. At times of loss, we’re meant to draw closer together to console and grieve and say goodbye.

The pandemic has changed everything about how we live and work. Some of the changes are great. I love seeing people awaken to the possibilities of a remote workforce, and I enjoy the new connections we’re making via video conferencing. I admire the creative energy that’s driving our new remote events.

But, man … this is no way to say goodbye.