MY CLOSE DISTANT COUSIN HAS COVID-19

Robert, a pain management doctor in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is four years my junior. If you’ve been following my blog posts, he’s Flora’s son. Flora’s maternal grandfather and my paternal grandfather were brothers. In genealogy terminology, this makes Robert my second cousin once removed.

I received the jolting text message from Robert as I was prepping dinner on Thanksgiving Day. Soon after digesting the text, Robert called, and we spoke for quite a while, through his coughing spells. While he lost his sense of taste and smell, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. As an outpatient, hoping to limit the course of the manifestations from the virus, the day before he contacted me, he had an infusion.

While he grew up in Philadelphia and I’ve always lived in New Jersey, we’ve known each other and the cast of characters in our extended family for over sixty years. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. He says that I’m the glue that keeps the family together, and I say it’s cousins such as him who make me want to keep the family together.

Since Robert, as we always called him, or Dr. Bob, as our children refer to him, still has his sense of humor, I suggested that he is used to giving his patients instructions, and now is his time to listen, hydrate, rest, and do all the things required to beat this nasty virus. I suppose though he’s married with a son in college and a daughter in high school, and being a doctor whom everyone calls for advice, I’m still his big cousin, and he listens.