Someone recently asked, “If you could go back to quarantine or lockdown, would you do it?”
Without hesitation, I replied, “Hell yeah.”
I enjoyed the empty streets. I appreciated not having to show up anywhere. I relished the silence, the space, the stillness.
But then my thoughts shifted. I began to think about my dad. He died during the early stages of COVID, a time when everything was confusing, scary, and uncertain.
When I got the call, I had to drive to Detroit to identify his body. Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. Though I had encountered death before, this was different. This was my Dad. And I was about to do the one thing I had feared my whole life: identify someone I loved at the morgue.
As my husband drove, my mind raced with questions. Would they leave me alone in the room with him? Would I want to touch him? How would he look? Was I ready?
When I arrived, I had to wait alone in the lobby. Only one person was allowed inside due to COVID restrictions.
A few minutes later, I looked up and saw my husband walking in. The man at the front desk looked like he was about to stop him, but I shot him a look that said, “Not today.”
Three doctors walked out and instructed me to follow them. They led me into a small white room with a few brown chairs. One of them said, “Due to COVID restrictions, you will need to identify your father using this monitor.” My heart sank. What do you mean, I cannot see him in person? I wanted to scream. But part of me was also relieved.
I have never been a fan of funerals; I prefer to remember people alive, happy, laughing, and breathing. Still, this did not feel real. The screen took a few seconds to load, but it felt like forever. Then he appeared. There was my Dad, lying still on a white surface.
He looked peaceful. I don’t know what I was expecting.
I took a deep breath, looked at the doctor, and said, “That’s him. That’s my Dad.”
Everything else felt like a blur.
I turned to my husband. He reached for my hand, and we walked out of the coroner’s office together. But before we made it to the car, my legs buckled beneath me, and I began to cry.
My husband held me up because if my knees had touched that pavement, I don’t think I would have gotten back up.
As we drove on the expressway heading back to Toledo, I looked out the window and quietly said, “I’m never coming back to Detroit.”
Perhaps it was a promise made in anguish, but to this day, I have kept it.
The closest I’ve been was flying out of DTW airport (Romulus, Michigan) to visit my sister in California last year.
Grief does something to you. It changes how you move, how you feel, how you exist in the world. Even when everything else reopens, some parts of you remain closed, locked down.
And maybe that is why a part of me wouldn’t mind going back to quarantine.
Because the world felt as quiet as I did. – Orsayor L. Simmons