There are moments in life that divide time into before and after, though you rarely recognize them as they unfold. In March of 2020, I lived through one of those moments—quietly at first, mundanely, disguised as something as ordinary as a cold.
He was not just anyone. He was our friend of thirty years, my wife’s business partner, a physician whose judgment we trusted without question. If he said he had a cold, then it was a cold, god dammit. That was the logic we clung to, even as the world beyond us began to tremble. Tv belched out news of a virus spreading from Wuhan, China, and of cruise ships turned away from U.S. ports like floating tombs, of something unseen but undeniably catastrophic approaching our shores. A tsunami was approaching.
And yet, inside our small circle, reality lagged behind the headlines.
He had recently met with two people from Wuhan. Still, he dismissed it. Even when the illness moved into his chest, even as his breathing grew labored, he insisted—it was just a chest cold. We wanted to believe him. Belief, at that moment, felt safer than truth. But his fingernails were turning blue.
The WHO test kit we used felt like something out of a clandestine operation—passed quietly, retrieved from the back of a pickup truck, unofficial and forbidden. Three small tests. A few drops of blood. Two minutes that stretched into something much longer.
Wife: Negative. Me: Negative. And then—his result: inconclusive.
He said it was negative. We knew it wasn’t. There was an argument about the color of the second line, a re-reading of the instructions.
By Monday, reality could no longer be negotiated with. My wife called me in a voice I had never heard before. When I arrived, I saw a man I barely recognized—his skin drained of color, his fingernails tinged blue, his breath shallow and insufficient. Still, he resisted. Still, he insisted he was fine.
Thirty minutes later, he collapsed onto my arms.
The arrival of the ambulance marked the moment the world shifted irreversibly. The responders looked less like paramedics and more like figures from some apocalyptic film—sealed in yellow suits, faces hidden behind respirators. I had asked for an ambulance. But the red and blue sirens were a mix of paramedics and police, yellow crime scene tape hurriedly erected, patients freaking out. They would not enter without police. Distance was enforced. Space itself had become dangerous.
It was then that the weight of what was happening—not just to him, but to all of us—became undeniable.
At the hospital, the transformation continued. Diligent US military officers repurposed from homestead Air Force base erected makeshift tents outside the hospital. The sick were kept out, even as they struggled to breathe. Six feet apart. Masks mandatory. No comfort. No touch. Only waiting.
For six hours, a man who could barely draw breath was forced to do so through fabric, while the system strained to make space for him.
And then he disappeared inside. “No family, no friends. Give one contact number, we will call you” barked a worried and overworked admissions nurse through an N95 mask and fully body protection worthy of a post apocalyptic battlefield.
For a month, my best friend existed behind layers of isolation—plastic barriers, oxygen tubes, the sterile hum of machines. His wife watched him through a screen, preparing herself for loss. His children saw their father fade in fragments—pixels and frozen frames, a body growing weaker, a towering presence slipping away.
We watched him turn blue. We watched him lose weight, consciousness, strength. We watched him endure something no one should face alone.
This was a man who had helped build our lives. A man who diagnosed my wife’s thyroid condition when others could not. A man who shared laughter, stories, and quiet celebrations with a glass in hand. Johnny Blue - nothing but the best. A man who felt permanent. A healthy man in his late 40s, albeit with slightly elevated triglycerides from his overindulgence in the tipple.
And yet, he was suddenly slipping away behind poor internet signals and shouts of “are you there?”
There was a moment—one fragile, miraculous moment—when everything began to change. He turned a corner. Slowly, painfully, he came back. Breath by breath. Step by step. It took three months before he could breathe normally. Six before he could walk without effort.
But what stays with me is not just his recovery.
It is the knowledge that he came dangerously close to dying behind a no man’s land of improvised plastic barriers - alone.
That possibility—so stark, so inhuman—has never left me.
When I listen now, I understand. What initially felt distant now feels deeply personal. The song is no longer abstract; it is anchored in memory, in fear, in gratitude, in grief for what almost was.
It is about absence. About the unbearable quiet of separation. About the cruelty of distance when closeness is needed most.
And it is about love—persisting even when it cannot be expressed through touch, only through screens, through pixels, through hope.
There is a tear in that understanding. Not just for what happened, but for what could have happened. For the version of that story that ends differently.
For the version where he never came back.
That is why it matters now. That is why it hurts. That is why it is beautiful.
Because sometimes, survival is not just about living. It’s about being “not alone”. A virus that killed 18 million people worldwide, most of whom died alone, surrounded by plastic ceilings and plastic walls, saying goodbye to their loved ones on the Internet. A cruel post apocalyptic kind of exit from this mortal realm. The song has now embedded in my brain in a way that no other U2 song has for many years, and despite the mediocrity of some of the other songs on Easter, Lily, this one will not be diluted by its peers. This one brought a tear to my eye, and is the most personal U2 song I’ve known in decades.
It is about returning from the edge of being lost alone. For those of you that I know and trust with real life details, which honestly is quite few people on this forum ornelsewhere, you know what I’m personally going through right now. This song has reached out to me in a way that no other has for many, many years, and I’m deeply grateful to the Edge for giving me the strength to cry.
Thanks, Edge.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
There are moments in life that divide time into before and after, though you rarely recognize them as they unfold. In March of 2020, I lived through one of those moments—quietly at first, mundanely, disguised as something as ordinary as a cold.
He was not just anyone. He was our friend of thirty years, my wife’s business partner, a physician whose judgment we trusted without question. If he said he had a cold, then it was a cold, god dammit. That was the logic we clung to, even as the world beyond us began to tremble. Tv belched out news of a virus spreading from Wuhan, China, and of cruise ships turned away from U.S. ports like floating tombs, of something unseen but undeniably catastrophic approaching our shores. A tsunami was approaching.
And yet, inside our small circle, reality lagged behind the headlines.
He had recently met with two people from Wuhan. Still, he dismissed it. Even when the illness moved into his chest, even as his breathing grew labored, he insisted—it was just a chest cold. We wanted to believe him. Belief, at that moment, felt safer than truth. But his fingernails were turning blue.
The WHO test kit we used felt like something out of a clandestine operation—passed quietly, retrieved from the back of a pickup truck, unofficial and forbidden. Three small tests. A few drops of blood. Two minutes that stretched into something much longer.
Wife: Negative. Me: Negative. And then—his result: inconclusive.
He said it was negative. We knew it wasn’t. There was an argument about the color of the second line, a re-reading of the instructions.
By Monday, reality could no longer be negotiated with. My wife called me in a voice I had never heard before. When I arrived, I saw a man I barely recognized—his skin drained of color, his fingernails tinged blue, his breath shallow and insufficient. Still, he resisted. Still, he insisted he was fine.
Thirty minutes later, he collapsed onto my arms.
The arrival of the ambulance marked the moment the world shifted irreversibly. The responders looked less like paramedics and more like figures from some apocalyptic film—sealed in yellow suits, faces hidden behind respirators. I had asked for an ambulance. But the red and blue sirens were a mix of paramedics and police, yellow crime scene tape hurriedly erected, patients freaking out. They would not enter without police. Distance was enforced. Space itself had become dangerous.
It was then that the weight of what was happening—not just to him, but to all of us—became undeniable.
At the hospital, the transformation continued. Diligent US military officers repurposed from homestead Air Force base erected makeshift tents outside the hospital. The sick were kept out, even as they struggled to breathe. Six feet apart. Masks mandatory. No comfort. No touch. Only waiting.
For six hours, a man who could barely draw breath was forced to do so through fabric, while the system strained to make space for him.
And then he disappeared inside. “No family, no friends. Give one contact number, we will call you” barked a worried and overworked admissions nurse through an N95 mask and fully body protection worthy of a post apocalyptic battlefield.
For a month, my best friend existed behind layers of isolation—plastic barriers, oxygen tubes, the sterile hum of machines. His wife watched him through a screen, preparing herself for loss. His children saw their father fade in fragments—pixels and frozen frames, a body growing weaker, a towering presence slipping away.
We watched him turn blue. We watched him lose weight, consciousness, strength. We watched him endure something no one should face alone.
This was a man who had helped build our lives. A man who diagnosed my wife’s thyroid condition when others could not. A man who shared laughter, stories, and quiet celebrations with a glass in hand. Johnny Blue - nothing but the best. A man who felt permanent. A healthy man in his late 40s, albeit with slightly elevated triglycerides from his overindulgence in the tipple.
And yet, he was suddenly slipping away behind poor internet signals and shouts of “are you there?”
There was a moment—one fragile, miraculous moment—when everything began to change. He turned a corner. Slowly, painfully, he came back. Breath by breath. Step by step. It took three months before he could breathe normally. Six before he could walk without effort.
But what stays with me is not just his recovery.
It is the knowledge that he came dangerously close to dying behind a no man’s land of improvised plastic barriers - alone.
That possibility—so stark, so inhuman—has never left me.
When I listen now, I understand. What initially felt distant now feels deeply personal. The song is no longer abstract; it is anchored in memory, in fear, in gratitude, in grief for what almost was.
It is about absence. About the unbearable quiet of separation. About the cruelty of distance when closeness is needed most.
And it is about love—persisting even when it cannot be expressed through touch, only through screens, through pixels, through hope.
There is a tear in that understanding. Not just for what happened, but for what could have happened. For the version of that story that ends differently.
For the version where he never came back.
That is why it matters now. That is why it hurts. That is why it is beautiful.
Because sometimes, survival is not just about living. It’s about being “not alone”. A virus that killed 18 million people worldwide, most of whom died alone, surrounded by plastic ceilings and plastic walls, saying goodbye to their loved ones on the Internet. A cruel post apocalyptic kind of exit from this mortal realm. The song has now embedded in my brain in a way that no other U2 song has for many years, and despite the mediocrity of some of the other songs on Easter, Lily, this one will not be diluted by its peers. This one brought a tear to my eye, and is the most personal U2 song I’ve known in decades.
It is about returning from the edge of being lost alone. For those of you that I know and trust with real life details, which honestly is quite few people on this forum ornelsewhere, you know what I’m personally going through right now. This song has reached out to me in a way that no other has for many, many years, and I’m deeply grateful to the Edge for giving me the strength to cry.
Thanks, Edge.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk