You start worrying about, "Am I gonna give this my dad? Am I gonna give it to… Who am I gonna give it to that I don't know, that I'm not aware?" I'm not out of the house a lot. But the times I do leave, you're around people and you think, "What if I just caught it from that group of people that just coughed all over me?" And so this is where you're paranoid in your head about it.
And there's this panic about, "What if I'm the cause of that person's death? Am I gonna bring this home?" I had a cousin, she watches kids. And one day she just showed up at my dad's, said she wanted to go swimming and he has a pool. I was like, "What the fuck are you doing in my dad's house? I didn't spend three months not seeing my dad after my mom died so you can just come over here and get him sick." [Laughs]
But it was... I think that's been the biggest worry is that, "Am I gonna get it and give it to someone else?" It's creepy. You feel like you're wielding this power, this control over someone's life and death and you don't want it. And you're like, "Maybe if I just stay home, it'll all go away and I won't have to deal with any of that."
— Jody Kujawa
Stories of Wisdom from Bodies in Separation (SWaBS): Archiving the Coronavirus Pandemic Through the Lens of Humanities has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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