That weekend, I called my dad and asked if he wanted to grab some lunch with me. My dad, like me, had been stuck at home for months. I trusted I could see him in-person without a mask on and be just fine. He wasn’t sick with anything, and neither was I. I told him the good news my doctors told me, which put him at ease about seeing me in-person without a mask, and letting me be in the same car as him with the windows rolled up.
On Memorial Monday, my dad drove up to pick me up. It was a somber day for the both of us. My grandpa Bob passed away on Memorial Monday morning two years before. Both Dad and I were close to my grandpa Bob, and his death was rather sudden. We didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or prepare ourselves for my grandpa’s departure, so it was very hard to lose him. But, we both agreed he was in a better place. I’m not sure if my dad’s religious, but my dad affirms that being in a dreamless sleep is better than suffering like my grandpa did. Meanwhile, I know that my grandpa currently has a brand new body in heaven, for death is not like a dreamless sleep. He no longer suffers from the numerous debilitating conditions in heaven he suffered while he was still on Earth. He’s a young, able-bodied man again, skipping around in heaven’s countryside, while Trikafta has enabled me to bound across the plains and in the mountains on Earth in a similar way.
Dad and I first drove south into Parker, Colorado, thinking there would be less people in that rural town. We were wrong. It was business as usual in Parker. People were walking around and congregating in groups, without masks, of course, and the traffic was pretty terrible too. Dad and I cringed. We wouldn’t be stopping for food in Parker! There was no way in hell! So, my dad found a cul-de-sac to flip around in, intentionally doing it fast to drift and cause me to snort up some of the soda I was trying to drink as he did that. I yelped as the soda burned my sinuses, and then immediately told my dad he was an ass for doing that while he giggled like a little girl.
We sped down some back country roads back into Aurora, and then into Southlands mall to find some food. It was much safer in Southlands. There were very few people, and those who were there were in masks. Also, Southlands is an outdoor mall, so nobody was breathing the same air, and a gentle breeze blew down Mainstreet, keeping the air cool and fresh.
It was incredibly eerie. It was just me and dad for most of the time we were there. As we walked, ambient music echoed between the stores that sounded more like it belonged in a halloween haunted funhouse than a mall, and a couple of tumbleweeds bounced across our path as we paced around the mall looking for a place to grab some food. After about a half hour of walking, we got back in the car and agreed to order some hot wings, which we could eat at my grandparents’. I agreed to pay for our food, and called Wingstop to place our order. After that, we just had to sit and wait.
I dreaded going inside Wingstop, even though it would just be for five minutes, and both Dad and I had N95 masks, cloth masks to put over our N95 masks, and hand sanitizer to decontaminate ourselves once we completed our mission. Twenty minutes after placing the order, Dad and I masked up, took in a deep breath, and made our way to the Wingstop. I tried to open the door with just my pinky to avoid touching things lots of other people touched as much as possible, but wasn’t strong enough to put all the weight of the door on just my pinky. So, my dad opened it with his pinky instead, and I quickly whipped out some hand sanitizer from my pocket for the both of us to use.
It was a surprisingly painless experience. There were only three other customers in the restaurant with us, and all of them were wearing masks. The Wingstop employees were also wearing masks, and there was a plexiglass shield between me and the cashier. I gave the cashier my name, and he got our food from the back. As soon as I had the big brown bag of buffalo hot wings in my arms, and my dad had our sodas, Dad and I booked it out of the restaurant and raced each other the short distance to his car. Mission successful!
