Member-only story
A Letter from Florence, Italy.
Faces of Quarantine, One Virus Many Faces
Hello Tami,
I am really very much thankful for your message and for asking me to write something for you. It was so lovely when we met in Florence in 2018, and you are my first American friend from California.
Well, what can I say, life is horrible here. All my family (my mother and father, my husband and mother in law and father in law) we are locked up in my small two-bedroom apartment. Remember, you came and liked my apartment very much? But now we are too much crowded. My parents in one room, in-laws in the other, and me and my husband are in the family room.
When I first heard about the coronavirus, I thought it would only stay in China and me and my friends called it the Chinese sickness and laughed about it. I could never even believe that my country will have so many dying people by one little illness. At the end of February, we were not scared and kept on going out and having fun. My business was perfect, like you saw it until they announced a full lockdown. My husband ran to his village to bring his parents because there was no one to watch them. It was a long drive, and I was relieved he got home before the lockdown.
I feel very sad and also angry. With four older people in the house who have many health…
