Mary Chapot - A perspective - this isn’t the first time I’ve lived through times like these.

I woke up this morning and made some connections that are helping me to understand why I’m so upset about Covid-19; maybe more deeply so than many around me. This environment, the dawning reality of a pandemic, this isn’t the first time I’ve lived through times like these. To many people younger than me and to those who were lucky enough to be living outside of the affected communities, the AIDS epidemic was something that happened to other people. Everyone became aware of the disease and it changed the way we interact as a community and as individuals. But, being aware of while living outside of and living within an epidemic are clearly different experiences.


Today I’m reliving the memory of how frightening those years were, especially when we didn’t know why people were getting sick, there was no effective medical treatment, and the people I loved were dying. My brother, my father-in-law, my best singing buddy, my next door neighbor, dozens of friends and acquaintances; they all died. I did what I could to stay balanced emotionally. Coincidentally, I moved away from San Francisco during the early years. But ultimately, there was no escaping it simply because of who I knew and loved, my family, our gay friends, all the beautiful creative gay people in the arts communities.


The level of upset I’ve experienced in the last few weeks has shown me that the strategies I developed in the AIDS years, distancing myself emotionally, gritting my teeth through the funerals, knowing that I (probably) wouldn’t die, didn’t end my fear; it just buried it. That epidemic slowed down as drugs were developed and behaviors changed, when the disease became a chronic illness rather than a death sentence; when we reexamined our post-WWII arrogance that antibiotics would take care of all the inconveniences of living in a human body.


 I remember poignantly my brother Hank, who didn’t die, telling me of his realization while standing at the intersection of Castro and Market Street in San Francisco, when? Maybe a decade after the first waves of deaths began. He realized looking down Castro Street that the middle generation was gone, only young and old men were left.


A whole generation of men died, beautiful men in the prime of their lives. This virus, Covid-19, is picking off the people you would expect it to, the gazelles at the edge of the herd, those older and sicker. I don’t mean to offend; I’m one of those gazelles now. Evolutionary, that is as it “should” be. But, of course, the personal surrender, the giving up of an individual life with grace, without struggling against the overwhelming desire to continue in the realization all of our plans, great and small, this is real sorrow, real grief and suffering.


 I imagine our medical geniuses will find a vaccine in a year or two. In the meantime, I will sit with my memories and try to develop a better strategy for accepting what is always true about living: life is short and precious, even if we live to be a hundred. I will turn my heart toward gratitude for each day, for the sun rising, and the rain falling, for the springtime with flowers and birds and beauty; for music and love, friendship and caring. I want to remember, remember, remember that nothing else, nothing else really matters. Mary Chapot mchapot@sonic.net