Just when we were settling into "empty-nesting" observance, all hell broke loose. The month of March, 2020, was scheduled to be consumed with travel plans. The first week was to Cabo, Mexico, with three couples, followed by a supposedly surprise trip to St. Barth's with three other couples to celebrate by 60th. And of course, then there was my 60th on March 31st, to be celebrated with friends on the home turf. March was to be a month on hiatus, or so I thought.
The weekend leading up to our Cabo trip was the first indication of things to come. Our hosts in St. Barth's called to say that they were cancelling, not because the coronavirus had arrived in St. Barth's, but rather in the event it did while we were there, we would be confronted with travel and healthcare predicaments. My initial reaction was, "so what? It's St. Barth's." I was so willing to risk it, but I had no standing, and apparently no voice.
Strike One....
Two days before our departure for Cabo, Dean and I did discuss whether we should be going. You couldn't ignore the news regarding the widespread transmission of the virus, nor the concern that we would be traveling out of the country, much less to a country with less than ideal health care, nor to the rumors of nation-wide college closures. If truth be told, as parents of two college students, I'm not sure what scared me more, the virus or the school closures.
Be that as it may, we took off to Cabo, all eight of us. All adults. All parents with kids in college. It's obvious what scared us more....
Some people would have been of the opinion that we deviated from proper judgment given the momentum of the spreading of the virus, or worse, that we were indifferent to the gravity of the situation. But according to Mexico, Cabo was not recognized as a hotspot. They couldn't afford to recognize it as such. It was Spring Break for many colleges, and that recognition would have destroyed Cabo's economy. One week later, however, the recognition took hold.
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