Heartbreak

 

August 5, 2020

J. Michael Davison

 

 

Heartbreak

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted anything on this blog. I have returned to Key West from what was a bittersweet visit to Winston-Salem where I spent some time with my mother Marta who is having some health issues that have made life challenging for both her as well as her family, especially my sister Marika and her husband Brian who have had to deal with the lion’s share of the responsibility for her care. That has been enough to keep me from wanting to do much of anything except work and hunker down at home.

The ongoing and ever expanding crisis that is the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has also been a factor, cases locally have continued to spread basically unchecked and the tragedy that is impacting our world hit home for Kathy and I personally as we lost our first friend to the virus last week. I have been including the numbers of cases in my blog postings since March to sort of track the spread and growth of the pandemic and the numbers continue to astound and scare us as this country is now account for 25 percent of the worldwide total, even though we only account for about 5 percent of the total population.

Deaths from the virus have been averaging over 1000 people a day for the past week or so in the United States so I guess it was sadly inevitable that we would know someone who perished from the virus. Currently there are 4,771,087 confirmed positive cases in the US and 156,806 people who have died. Here in Monroe County, the numbers climbed to 1404 cases with 648 of those here in Key West and a massive growth in the death totals in the past two weeks growing from 2 to 13 as of today.

But those are just numbers and you can easily get jaded to the repeated and ever growing list of numbers that is broadcast each day. The truth behind each number is that it is an individual real person behind each one, with real families, loved ones and friends who are impacted by each positive case and every death attributed to the virus.

The point was sadly driven home this week when we learned of the passing of our friend J. Michael Davison. Kathy and I have known Michael and his wife Jean for many years, Jean is one of the instructors at the water aerobics class that I take at the College of the Florida Keys and her husband and I always joined in right next to each other in the deepest section of the water. For years we would talk, joke and exercise together passing the hour long class chatting away like members of a sewing circle. Often we were the only men in the overwhelmingly female-centric class, but we always had a good time.

His dry wit and humor and loveable curmudgeonly attitude were traits that we loved about him. He was kind and smart and interesting and one of the people on this island that are the reason that we love this community so much. We often shared holidays together at the home of mutual friends and it was this past Christmas where we most recently spent appreciable time together at various holiday gatherings. The Covid crisis has kept us from seeing so many of our friends including Michael and Jean, so we were not aware that he had health issues that brought him to the hospital where he apparently contracted and succumbed to the Covid virus, only days after being diagnosed. Like so many, he passed alone as his wife was quarantined and unable to be with him.

Jean and Michael

Tom, Michael and Greta

 It is such a personal and sad situation. Michael was so much more than just a number or statistic, his tragic passing illuminated just how vicious and heartless this virus is. It is one that has been tragically repeated in more than 150,000 homes across this country just since March. Of course when his passing was announced as one of those who had died, the health department made a point to let everyone know that Michael had the dreaded underlying conditions that made him more vulnerable to the virus.

This to me, is one of the most horrific things about the way this virus is reported, underlying conditions- as if that somehow makes it ok, oh well they had an underlying condition. So the hell what? Probably about 70% of Americans have some sort of condition that makes them higher risk and the fact remains that they would all still be alive if not for Covid-19. It makes it so infuriating that people can be so cavalier and uncaring about following the basic safety guidelines, the vast majority of these deaths were unnecessary.

One of the things that Michael and I shared was a love of racing, we had traveled with Michael and Jean in the past to attend the Indy Car race at Homestead Speedway in Miami, and he was also a big Indy 500 fan. The virus cost me personally one of the great joys of my life when this week, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced that they will be running the already postponed Indy 500 without fans. I was literally all set to depart for Indianapolis this weekend and it was another sad blow to have to cancel what would have been my 49^th straight year of attending the race.

I am trying to look on the bright side, Hurricane Isaias, which was initially forecast to come right at us, thankfully made a hard right hand turn, skirting up the coast and avoiding the Florida Keys altogether, which was a blessing. A hurricane is the last thing we need, instead it has been beautiful, sunny and really hot here. We have pretty much stayed at home, where this week we caught an opossum in our chicken trap (we let it go), and received a wonderful group of drawings of our pets by our young 6 year old friend Meredith.