Travelling in a pandemic is scary at any time, but when my only daughter invited me to come to British Columbia for the birth of her first child I was filled with joy. I was, also anxious about travelling from Ontario to Vancouver Island during the pandemic.
So I planned my trip in an entirely new way because it was very important to me….
I had a moment when I stepped into Toronto’s International Airport: staff were wearing blue paper outfits with goggles and masks; and the airport itself echoing and almost empty. I felt like I had stepped into a weird science fiction movie or had been transported to Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel’s novel of the same title).
My heart began humping and I had to work with myself: don’t get frozen with fear and weirdness. Move on, find your gate get on the plane. You can do this.
Including the strangeness of getting your temperature checked with a big black machine and then sliding through security.
The plane was only a third full – which was an incredible relief for me personally but made me wonder how the aviation industry – among so many others – will survive this pandemic.
Flight attendants wearing protective gear moved rapidly through the economy section, tossing each of us a sealed plastic bag with headphones, a sterile wipe, a tiny water bottle and pretzels. Fluids were available during the flight but no food except in first class – some things never change!
In Victoria, I stayed in my Airbnb for the recommended six days of quarantine, checking daily on BC Public Health website for notifications of a Covid outbreak on my flight. After a week, I hugged my daughter – worth every hassle, worry and stress in getting here.
And earlier today, I tenderly held my healthy, sleeping newborn granddaughter. I’m filled with astonishment at the persistence and insistence of life. What a time to be born, the second wave of this bizarre virus washing over us, though maybe parents and grandparents have felt similar waves of amazement, hopefulness, anxiety and fear about their newborns in decades gone by – during our World Wars and the Great Depression for example.
I am so lucky to share this time with my daughter and her family when so many people around the world have not been able to say hello to new family members – or maybe even having said good-bye to loved ones. I treasure every moment, filling up on love and life shared. Let’s do our best to stay grateful, stay kind and stay safe.
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