Milestones, rituals: Will they ever be the same?
Wedding anniversaries for Elizabeth O’Connor Cole and her husband, Michael, usually involve a dinner reservation for two at a fancy restaurant. Not this time around.
As the pandemic raged last May, the Chicago mom of four unearthed her boxed wedding gown from 19 years ago, got it zipped with help from one of her daughters and surprised her spouse.
Cole recreated their reception menu — a shrimp appetizer and beef tenderloin — and pulled out her wedding china and silver after enlisting another of her kids to DJ their firstdance song, “At Last,” for a romantic turn around the living room. And the priest who married them offered a special blessing on Zoom with friends and family joining in.
“Spontaneous and a bit chaotic,” O’Connor Cole pronounced the celebration. “Still, it was probably the most meaningful and fun anniversary we’ve had.”
As the pandemic enters its second year, there’s a pent-up longing for the recent past, especially when it comes to life’s milestones. When the crisis finally resolves, will our new ways of marking births and deaths, weddings and anniversaries have any lasting impact? Or will freshly felt sentiments born of pandemic invention be fleeting?
Some predict their pandemic celebrations have set a new course. Others still mourn the way their traditions used to be.
Milestones, rituals and traditions help set the rhythm of our lives, from the annuals like birthdays and anniversaries to the one-timers like births and deaths, extending beyond those boundaries to more casual events like opening day (choose your sport), drinks out after work with colleagues and that first swim of summer.
‘Memory book’
Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania who studies memory and personal experience, says certain events shape lives differently — and have been reshaped just as differently during the pandemic. Perhaps most devastatingly impacted, she says, are death and dying, sitting at bedsides to comfort and attending funerals to mourn as the coronavirus has killed more than 2.3 million people around the world.
“That’s being felt the hardest because it’s the hardest to replace,” Talarico says. “That’s probably going to have the most lasting impact.”
Renee Fry knows the feeling well. Her grandmother, Regina Connelly, died Dec. 6 of COVID-19 at her nursing home in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. She had just turned 98. There was no dropping everything to be at her bedside. There was no large church celebration of her life followed by dinner for all.
“We had to rely on video conferencing,” Fry says.
But they also did something else. She and her sister, Julie Fry, put together a “memory book” shared
with far-flung family and friends. They included Regina’s favorite prayer, the Hail Mary, and asked loved ones to recite it on her behalf. They filled pages with photos through the years, from a portrait of young Regina in a fine red dress (lipstick to match, gold pendant around her neck) to more casual shots with grandchildren.
The sisters — Renee in Quincy, Massachusetts, and Julie in Port Matilda, Pennsylvania — wrote the story of how Regina met her husband on a blind date, then lost him when he died in 2010 after 64 years of marriage. They wrote of how she spent most of her teen years caring for her two brothers after their mother died suddenly when she was 13. They included rosaries with each of the 32 booklets they mailed.
Judging from the response — a second cousin called to say thank you, and a caregiver for Regina
wrote a two-page letter offering thanks as well — it made an impact. “It was incredibly meaningful,” Renee says.
Such a booklet will be created when the family faces death once again. The pandemic, Fry says, has proven that distance no longer denies lasting meaning.
New set of values
Daryl Van Tongeren, an associate professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, studies meaning in life, religion and virtues. Rituals, symbols and milestones help provide structure to our worlds, Van Tongeren says, demarcating the passage of time or a significant accomplishment but more importantly lending meaning to life itself.
“One of the things that these milestones and these rituals do is they connect us with other people and things that are larger than ourselves,” he says.
Sometimes left behind in a swirl of celebration is the core significance of something just as important — the events themselves. Students who missed out on the walk across the stage at their graduations remain graduates. Couples forced to elope or give up their dreams of weddings for 200 for smaller affairs still have their marriages to experience.
While some predict a Roaring `20s renaissance once the crisis has ended, “there are going to be a number of people who are changed,” Van Tongeren says. “They’re going to say, `I’m going to emerge from this pandemic with a new set of values and I’m going to live my life according to new priorities.’”
Last year, Shivaune Field celebrated her 40th birthday on Jan. 11 with a group of friends at a downtown restaurant in Los Angeles, where she lives. It was just weeks before the coronavirus made its way to the U.S. This year, when she turned 41, the adjunct professor in business at Pepperdine University simply took to the beach with her pals.
“It felt much more authentic, a nicer way to connect without all the bells and whistles,” she says. “I think it’s really nice to get back to that. It reminds me of childhood.”
Fields grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where she says her parents kept birthdays rooted in family outings to the beach or bike rides followed by a treat of ice cream.
“Weekend get-togethers are now in sneakers with dogs sitting on grass and picnic rugs rather than on stools in fancy restaurants,” she says. And Field is just fine with that.
‘Cultural baggage’
Marking time has changed during the pandemic. There’s the ticking off of months based on trips to the hair salon and the length of pandemic beards. There’s Zoom creativity and socially distanced trips outdoors. Recreating celebrations of the past for major, time-marking events has been difficult as time blurred and safety restrictions took over.
“We have all of this cultural baggage, in a good way, around those events,” Talarico says. “It’s a reinforcing cycle of events that we expect to be memorable.”
Memorable has been hard to achieve. But the rethink has been important for many, and its effects may ripple long after the virus has ebbed.
“For those wanting to reminisce years later about important events that happened during the pandemic, there will likely be nostalgia mixed with more than a tinge of trauma,” says Wilfred van Gorp, a past president of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology.
“It may remind us of the loneliness and isolation brought about by the pandemic, our fear of catching the virus, fear of dying, fear of losing loved ones and loss of any we knew who may have died from COVID-19,” he says. “And,” he adds, “recollections of what we didn’t have, what we missed, and the experiences we couldn’t share together.”
NEW YORK » A year ago, Max Kumangai was dazzling crowds with a jolt of live Broadway excitement. Now he’s doing it with his bread.
The triple threat from the musical “Jagged Little Pill” has leaned into a fourth skill as the pandemic marches on: baking and selling his own sourdough.
From his Manhattan apartment, Kumangai delivers $15 bread loaves or $8 focaccia slices from his Humpday Dough company on foot or via subway.
“I wanted to make connecting with people — at a time when it was difficult to connect — a part of the business,” he says. “It’s feeding me figuratively and literally.”
Getting creative
With TV and film sets slowly gearing back up a year after COVID-19 hit, Broadway theaters are still shuttered with no end in sight. That means people who make their living in live entertainment have had to be creative.
Out-of-work seamstresses are selling handmade jewelry and plush toys on Etsy, dancers are teaching classes online and actors are doing voiceover work, podcasts or selling video
Cameo.
“This is a paycheck-topaycheck profession. We are workers,” says Laura Benanti, a Tony winner. “It’s really deeply upsetting to me that there are so many people suffering, unable to feed themselves. They don’t have savings.”
According to a new report from the New York State Comptroller, employment for New York City workers in the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors fell 66% during the pandemic.
The drop — from 87,000 jobs in February 2020 to 34,100 jobs just three months later — marks the largest employment decline out of all sectors in the city’s economy. It has left Broadway workers, many who have lost health insurance, living on side gigs, stimulus checks and unemployment assistance.
“I’ve had a lot of friends who just picked up and relocated and moved to different states because we’re staying in one of the most expensive states in the country,” says Jawan M. Jackson, a star of “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations.” He pivoted to putting out a single, filming a movie and got into commercials.
He wished government leaders would do more. “We kind of feel like we
shout-outs on
are just afterthoughts,” he said. “I just wish they would have been a little bit better during the shutdown for us because of the predicament that we’re in. But hopefully it’s going to change. We’ll see.”
Others are more blunt: “These artists need to be protected. They need to be supported. This is dire straits right now,” said Tom Kitt, a Pulitzer Prizewinning composer. “This is the lifeblood of this city.”
Piecemeal existence
Theater work even without a pandemic is usually a piecemeal existence. Shows rarely run for years and workers live a nomadic existence, jumping to new works every few years.
These days, they’re even more piecemeal since people who make live theater will clearly be the last back at work.
“You pick up things where you can. I know a lot of people that have taken on side gigs when they can. A lot of people have gone back to school,” said Derek Klena, a Tony-nominee. “You do what you can to get by.”
Musician Andrew Griffin had landed a great gig playing viola for “Ain’t Too Proud” when the pandemic shut down his steady gig. He has cobbled together a few live concerts, composed for a dance company and done some consulting work.
He’s seen
people
selling their instruments and their cars. One woman close to him has even sold her eggs. “It’s definitely been very challenging and very stressful in a lot of different ways,” he says.
Some of Broadway’s leading men — including Jeremy Jordan, Max von Essen, Corey Cott and Adam Pascal — have turned to Cameo, which pays celebrities to make personalized videos for fans.
“I’ve clawed my way to paying those bills each month,” says Pascal, a Tony-nominee for “Rent” who has made his own rent this year teaching masterclasses and with concerts. “Pivoting in whatever way I’m able to pivot.”
Some of Broadway’s leading ladies — from Patti Murin, Cassie Levy, Kerry Butler, Lilli Cooper to Ashley Park — have been coaching, singing and answering questions virtually on Broadway Booker, which pivoted from hosting in-person events to online ones. A 30-minute private coaching session from a veteran can start at $75.
Broadway dancer Jen Frankel lost her job but quickly become an employer: She co-founded the virtual dance platform PassDoor, hiring suddenly out-of-work Broadway veterans to teach all skill levels or ages.
“We thought, ‘Here’s an opportunity for not only us to help the Broadway community, but also to help everybody by giving them a chance to dance with people that they never would have.”
“I’ve had a lot of friends who just picked up and relocated and moved to different states because we’re staying in one of the most expensive states in the country.”
— Jawan M. Jackson, a star of “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations.”
Career transitions
Bebe Neuwirth, a twotime Tony winner who also starred on “Cheers,” works with dancers on career transitions and worries about the losses to her art form from the pandemic.
“I know a lot of dancers are saying, ‘OK, I got to get a scholarship and go back to school and do something, because I can’t make it work,’” she says. “Who knows what those dancers might have done if they’d stayed?”
Los Angeles emergency room nurse Sandra Younan spent the last year juggling long hours as she watched many patients struggle with the coronavirus and some die.
Then there were the patients who claimed the virus was fake or coughed in her face, ignoring mask rules. One man stormed out of the hospital after a positive COVID-19 test, refusing to believe it was accurate.
“You have patients that are literally dying, and then you have patients that are denying the disease,” she said. “You try to educate and you try to educate, but then you just hit a wall.”
Bogus claims about the virus, masks and vaccines have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago. Journalists, public health officials and tech companies have tried to push back against the falsehoods, but much of the job of correcting misinformation has fallen to the world’s frontline medical workers.
In Germany, a video clip showing a nurse using an empty syringe while practicing vaccinations traveled widely online as purported evidence that COVID-19 is fake. Doctors in Afghanistan reported patients telling them COVID-19 was created by the U.S. and China to reduce the world population. In Bolivia, medical workers had to care for five people who ingested a toxic bleaching agent falsely touted as a COVID-19 cure.
Younan, 27, says her friends used to describe her as the “chillest person ever,” but now she deals
with crushing anxiety.
“My life is being a nurse, so I don’t care if you’re really sick, you throw up on me, whatever,” Younan said. “But when you know what you’re doing is wrong, and I’m asking you repeatedly to please wear your mask to protect me, and you’re still not doing it, it’s like you have no regard for anybody but yourself. And that’s why this virus is spreading. It just makes you lose hope.”
Ebola comparison
Emily Scott, 36, who is based at a Seattle hospital, has worked around the world on medical missions and helped care for the first U.S. COVID-19 patient last year. She was selected because of her experience working in Sierra Leone during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
While many Americans were terrified of Ebola — a
disease that isn’t nearly as contagious as the coronavirus and poses little threat in the U.S. — they aren’t nearly afraid enough of COVID-19, she said.
Scott blames a few factors: Ebola’s frightening symptoms, racism against Africans and the politicization of COVID-19 by American elected officials.
“I felt so much safer in Sierra Leone during Ebola than I did at the beginning of this outbreak in the U.S.,” Scott said, because of how many people failed to heed social distancing and mask directives. “Things that are facts, and science, have become politicized.”
ER nurse L’Erin Ogle has heard a litany of false claims about the virus while working at a hospital in the suburbs of Kansas City, Kansas. They include: The virus isn’t any worse than the flu. It’s caused by
5G wireless towers. Masks won’t help and may hurt. Or, the most painful to her: The virus isn’t real, and doctors and nurses are engaged in a vast global conspiracy to hide the truth.
“It just feels so defeating, and it makes you question: Why am I doing this?” said Ogle, 40.
Falsehoods
Nurses are often the health care providers with the most patient contact, and patients frequently view nurses as more approachable, according to professor Maria Brann, an expert on health communication at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. That means nurses are more likely to encounter patients spreading misinformation, which gives them a special opportunity to intervene.
“Nurses have always been patient advocates, but this pandemic has thrown so much more at them,” Brann said. “It can definitely take a toll. This isn’t necessarily what they signed up for.”
In some cases, it’s nurses and other health care workers themselves spreading misinformation. And many nurses say they encounter falsehoods about the coronavirus vaccine in their own families.
For Brenda Olmos, 31, a nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas, who focuses on a geriatric and Hispanic patient population, it was a no-brainer to get the vaccine. But first she had to debate her parents, who had heard unsubstantiated claims that the shot would cause infertility and Bell’s palsy on Spanish-language TV shows.
Olmos eventually convinced her parents to get the vaccine, too, but she worries about vaccine hesitancy in her community.
When she recently encountered an elderly patient with cancerous tumors, Olmos knew the growths had taken years to develop. But the man’s adult children who had recently gotten him the vaccine insisted that the two were connected.
“To them, it just seemed too coincidental,” Olmos said. “I just wanted them to not have that guilt.”
Olmos said the real problem with misinformation is not just bad actors spreading lies — it’s people believing false claims because they aren’t as comfortable navigating often complex medical findings.
“Low health literacy is the real pandemic,” she said. “As health care providers, we have a duty to serve the information in a way that’s palatable, and that’s easy to understand, so that people don’t consume misinformation because they can’t digest the real data.”
Building trust
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mask mandate this month against the guidance of many scientists, nurse practitioner Guillermo Carnegie called the decision a “spit in the face.”
“I was disgusted,” said Carnegie, 34, of Temple, Texas. “This governor, and different people, they act like, ‘Oh, we’re proud of our front-line workers, we support them.’ But then they do something like that, and it taxes the medical field tremendously.”
Brian Southwell, who started a program at Duke University School of Medicine to train medical professionals how to talk to misinformed patients, said providers should view the patient confiding in them as an opportunity.
“That patient trusts you enough to raise that information with you,” Southwell said. “And so that’s a good thing, even if you disagree with it.”
He said medical workers should resist going into “academic argumentation mode” and instead find out why patients hold certain beliefs — and whether they might be open to other ideas.
That act of listening is imperative to building trust, according to Dr. Seema Yasmin, a physician, journalist and Stanford University professor who studies medical misinformation.
“Put down your pen, put down your notebook and listen,” Yasmin said.