My parents and grandparents raised me full of dreams of seeing the world, but now I struggle to convince them that I need to stay at home. In the midst of a global pandemic that hasn’t been seen in generations, I find myself trying to persuade people with several decades of experience that this isn’t just any crisis – it’s an event that will define the world for the next 50 years. And that offers an unlimited number of risks, especially for certain groups.
Absolutely neurotic. This is how I am before completing a week of confinement. My problem is not fear of catching COVID-19, the disease transmitted by the new coronavirus. It’s catching it, not even feeling it and ending up transmitting it to people in the risk group, especially those I love.
See too: Coronavirus and travel – do I need to cancel? What are the passenger’s rights?
Quarantine diaries – 5 reports of social isolation around the world
I was so worried that I thought twice before visiting my grandparents, something I normally do every other day too. I went at the beginning of the week, but to do so I took my temperature (several times), I remained distant during the visit, avoiding hugs and kisses, I washed my hands a dozen times and carefully cleaned all the surfaces I touched – so worried about erasing fingerprints as a serial killer after a day of work.
While I was conquering my fear of contamination and thinking, step by step, about the precautions needed to be there, I discovered that my grandmother had gone, less than 24 hours before, to a crowded hospital – and to do a routine exam that we had already agreed on. to postpone. She went alone because she knew that if she told her family she would never go, as she herself admitted. I gave one of those scoldings and put everyone in quarantine, with enough alcohol gel and lots of care instructions. Ufa!
Cut to the next day, when I made one last quick exit from the house, careful to avoid crowds and itching to avoid scratching my face. As I let the fear of contamination dominate me, I saw a group of octogenarians having a lively chat in a cafe in the center of Belo Horizonte, perfect islands in a ghost town. They weren’t the only ones, as I discovered from my grandmother days later – the same one who was naughty on Monday, but who on Friday, already convinced of the seriousness of the problem, decided to tell on my father: “He was at the bar yesterday. He called here and told me”.
I didn’t even wait for the news to come down: I sent dozens of messages, with arguments that varied between mortality rates, the health crisis in Italy, comorbidities and the risk of infecting others. I also resorted to emotional blackmail, I confess, although I preferred to keep some cards like that up my sleeve (did you hear, dad?).
He swore he would behave, but then acting like that is another story, right? It is necessary to keep a close eye on these disobedient gentlemen…
-Bar, dad? With the mayor closing the entire city, with the world upside down, are you going to a bar? IN A BAR?
-That’s why I went, to say goodbye. Tomorrow, with everything closed, I really won’t go.
Huffing and puffing, I told the story to groups of friends – and gained immediate attention. “My father was also in a bar yesterday, saying goodbye,” said one. “Mine says goodbye to the bar all the time, he doesn’t care. Go play games, drink beer, chat with friends,” said another. “And mine, who go to meet their friends and even do chimarrão circles”, says a report that comes from the south. “I think I managed to scare my mother. I shared fake news with her that the government is going to suspend the retirement of elderly people who don’t stay at home”, said a third, admitting a tactic, let’s say, unorthodox.
Meanwhile, other reports coming from the south leave my girlfriend terrified:
-Dad, are you going to the fair tomorrow? – she asks.
-I’m going early – my father-in-law replies.
-Father, for the love of God, stop this. You’re going to take a risk to buy cheese, is that it?
-No of course not. Honey and cookies. There’s still cheese here.
What these mothers and fathers have in common are exactly the risk factors for COVID-19: age in the 60s or above, high blood pressure, diabetes and unhealthy habits, whether with or without the pandemic.
After the outburst, friends started sending me texts, memes, audios and videos about the subject, a wave of connection, empathy and, why not, humor – I think I’ll create a group on WhastApp: Concerned Children and Grandchildren Take Action with Senseless Progenitors
Just today I received a text from a Portuguese website reporting that things there are on the same level, with elderly people taking children on the verge of a nervous breakdown; the audio of a man saying that Rio de Janeiro looks like a scene from old walking, only with elderly people on the streets; a meme with the deaf old woman from Praça É Nossa exchanging “avoid crowds” for “go to wholesale”; a video recorded in Santa Maria (RS) that shows the city council removing benches from a sidewalk while a woman comments that it is “absurd to have to do this for the elderly to stay at home”; the news that the city of Três Rios (RJ) removed concrete tables from a square where they usually play cards. And countless reports of desperate children because they can’t keep their parents and grandparents quiet at home.
I learned a long time ago that the succession of decades reverses roles. Our creators, those who took care of us and who to this day are our safe haven, suddenly start to demand the same care – and return the headache we once gave.
But I would venture to say that humanity has rarely seen a collective role reversal of this size, if anything of this magnitude has ever happened before.
– But everyone is leaving, my daughter. It’s just bingo at so-and-so’s house. The whole class goes, my son. It’s not a bar, there’s no unknown virus, we’re just meeting at a friend’s house.
– YOU ARE NOT EVERYONE. I’m not everyone’s son! I’m not the son of the whole class! So if everyone else jumps off the bridge, you’ll go too, right? You don’t have a house, do you? Now he just lives on the street! You have more luck than sense, huh?
Fathers, mothers and grandparents, you rightly asked us to stay at home studying for the university entrance exam, preparing ourselves for the future. They pulled our ears, making it clear that it would be a temporary sacrifice and that everything would be worth it, that we would soon be in the world. And that there is no need to be in a hurry with the natural course of life.
Now it’s our turn: please! This is no time to get into trouble! Stay calm at home, because in life there is time for everything. And understand, if we fight, it’s for your own good, you’ll still thank us. What we fear most is that this game will end in tears.
