Far from My Hospital Bed: Reflections on the Pandemic and Society
By Teresita Cruz del Rosario
Penguin, Singapore
ISBN: 978-9814954457
304pp.

The Covid-19 pandemic came, it saw and it never left. For better or for worse, the coronavirus is here to stay and one can only hope that the worst may be over. However, for the most part, humankind has learned to accept, adapt and live with all the ramifications of the deadly virus that broke ground at the end of 2019.

Though there are clear distinctions between life before and after Covid-19 in all aspects of everyday existence, most conversation in this regard is clinical and diagnostic, devoid of empathy for being forced to ride an emotional rollercoaster — along with suffering psychological and physiological trauma — of Sisyphean proportions. Whether or not they were diagnosed with Covid-19 or felt any of its mildest or worst symptoms, individuals and their families were put through immense emotional and intellectual strain for which, up till now, there has been little recognition or acceptance.

While easing into normalcy — even this is ironic, considering there was nothing easy about it — it appears that the world at large just decided to consider the Covid-19 years as a mere blip, an inconvenience. It has continued with its mechanical mundanities and pandemic memories have been reduced to casual, drawing-room conversation.

In this regard, the collection of essays titled Far from My Hospital Bed: Reflections on the Pandemic and Society, written by sociologist Teresita Cruz del Rosario, is a poignant work of recording the experiential events that have now been reduced to clichés — terms such as ‘the pandemic’ or ‘Covid-19’ or ‘lockdowns’ have become mere labels with a lot of subtext in fine print that only a few bother to read.

A sociologist attempts to grapple with the immense emotional and intellectual strain Covid-19 virus put humankind through, with poignant personal essays that are a breeze to read

The book is clearly personal. It has to be, if it is to fully empathise with the entirety of the human pandemic experience, and the emotional and psychological processes or triggers that have altered our way of thinking over the past few years. It begins with the author’s 25-day stay at a Singapore hospital and the realms of thoughts, memories and emotions that engulfed her during that life-altering period. Her book continues to explore the realms of humanness during and beyond the pandemic and finds reasons to be hopeful for, and in the future of, humankind.

The essays in Far from My Hospital Bed were written and collected over a period of two years spanning the worst of the pandemic. They are a sociologist’s attempt to unravel and unpack the worst and the best of human emotions — grief, love, humour, anxiety, loneliness, fear, altruism, honour and loyalty — through the many significant intellectual perspectives that have, so far, been presented about human nature and human habits.

From Del Rosario’s own admission, “In countless ways, this book is very much like Covid-19. There isn’t a unifying thesis to string the different chapters together like an academic book. There are no concepts culled from existing literature, nor are there debates that serve as background to the research problem. There is no research design, no null hypothesis and no models with discrete variables that constitute the explanation and the explanandum. There isn’t a methodology to justify the choice and treatment of data, no analytical framework to analyse, explain and predict the phenomenon under study.”

Although refreshingly honest, this warning is a little too modest, because this book is one of the two recently published seminal works — the other being Nichola Khan’s The Breath of Empire: Breathing with Historical Trauma in Anglo-Chinese Relations — which situate pandemic-related trauma in historical, anthropological and sociological settings.

Despite the immensity of the task they accomplish, the essays are a breeze to read. Since all the themes stem from the author’s personal life, the strings of loosely organised thoughts are extremely relatable. What makes the writing so compelling is the fact that the author engages in zero whataboutery.

From the anxiety she and her siblings had for their ailing mother who lived alone, to being able to relish simple crackers, to understanding and being empathetic to one’s own body while it rebels in its own way by reacting to simple viruses and infections and coming to love it, all the themes and tones of the book are deeply intimate. All the experiences shared by the author are real, thus her attempts at understanding and anchoring them with intellectual reasoning also come across as not just genuine, but a natural by-product of human intellect.

In the spirit of full transparency, following the example set by the author, it must be declared that reading the experience of undergoing Covid-19 and superimposed infections was made all the more personal for me because of an acute bout of pneumonia suffered while writing this review.

Though there are clear distinctions between life before and after Covid-19 in all aspects of everyday existence, most conversation in this regard is clinical and diagnostic, devoid of empathy for being forced to ride an emotional rollercoaster.

Despite having been infected by the coronavirus twice before, I had, so far, luckily escaped any of the more serious symptoms. In writing these words, I cannot help but wonder if this twist of fate was needed to help reset my understanding of the world, both within and outside my being — not unlike Del Rosario’s attempt at understanding the many aspects of pandemic-related trauma and its place in society.

It is said by those who experience it that grief isn’t linear. The same can be said for trauma, be it physiological, emotional or mental. The memories associated with those experiences come and go as they please, without any regard for propriety or absurdity of occasion.

The same, however, can also be said for human resilience and kindness. Amidst the unravelling of trauma and how it affects societies, the hallmark of Del Rosario’s book is the focus and study of human resilience and kindness, and how they somehow continue to spring eternal in times when humanity is seemingly in distress.

With her plea for reshaping the worlds both within and outside ourselves, the author’s warnings for potential new epidemics — she counts racism as of them — and appeal for a new world order are her ways of hoping that kindness, empathy and generosity will continue to be the pillars of human strength in the times that lie ahead.

Far from My Hospital Bed: Reflections on the Pandemic and Society is more than it seems and claims to be, exactly like all the innocuous things that comprise the human experience and all that encompasses it.

The reviewer is a former member of staff.
She tweets @tehminaqureshi

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 26th, 2023