This past Sunday, my father, Lawrence Ethridge II, texted me, my four other siblings and said, “I don’t want to lose either one of you,” referencing that these upcoming weeks were critical for COVID-19.

Of course, most parents carry this sentiment. You could lose someone at any given moment, but to him, this was a different case. 

We’d talked on the day prior, Saturday, as he came to visit and check up on me. We’d gotten a 30-piece wing combo to eat together and stopped at a nearby gas station to pick up some drinks. On our way out after paying, the cashier, an older woman, conversed with us, telling us her worries about the virus and wishing us to be safe.

I said to my father, “Wow, this virus has really changed people’s demeanors because I’ll come into a gas station often and just get a ‘hey’ and a ‘have a good night.’”

He said yes it was surprising and if you look at it, you’ll see why. This virus is something that attacks everyone regardless of race, sex or orientation, he told me. No one is immune.

Through military, law enforcement and in all his 52, almost 53, years of life, Lawrence Ethridge II — or anyone else in this day and age — hasn’t lived through an epidemic like this before; so what else can you say other than dole out compassion for your fellow human being?

As a younger person going through this COVID-19, it’s a scary time. I’m scared not for myself but for the older people in my family. 

I miss going home and going home always meant visiting my grandparents before leaving back to Valdosta again. I love catching up with them — I love them — but what if I’m asymptomatic? What if I go home, get them sick and leave them to be a casualty simply because I miss them?

PCOM South Georgia student Jazmone Kelly, whose home is back in Ohio, responded with a similar sentiment.

“You can’t go home and not see your grandma,” she said. “[But] the last thing I want to do is get [her] sick.”

Kelly had first heard about COVID-19 at a Florida beach on Spring Break. It was just another virus, nothing to worry about. But when it started cancelling school, and changing the ebb and flow of daily life, that’s when she started taking it seriously.

Deadlines on emergency orders keep extending and the death tolls keep going up.

“I’m up to about four people I’ve known personally who’ve actually died from this virus,” she said. “I was like ‘Wow. Okay. They’re gone.’”

These were people in their 60s-70s, but still, she said, she just wants to go home and be with loved ones during this time, specifically her grandma. She’s 85, so there are major concerns there.

PCOM South Georgia student Woodly Dominique said he’s keeping his fingers crossed right now as he hopes the virus will be handled by the summer. 

Dominique is the youngest in his class at 21, and though he knows being young has its perks against the virus, there needs to be caution and care for others during this time.

“I feel like something that a lot of people are doing is that even if they’re good from it, they don’t care about other people,” he said. “We need to take it as a group.”

In his opinion, the way to stop the virus is to do a groupthink: If I stay at home, then another person won’t get it or just because I don’t have it doesn’t mean I can’t spread it to someone else.

That’s the prime reason he hasn’t gone back to his home in Florida. But just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean it’s the fun thing to do. 

Dominique’s found himself homesick in the past when he spent hours on the school campus and now it’s the opposite.

This comes to the notion that we find ourselves as a society doing things we’d never thought we do before on a large scale. Case in point, Kelly said, the virtual reality many students are experiencing now.

“I know a couple of friends that had different jobs they went in for everyday [but now] they’re working from home,” she said. “I don’t want to call it a lazy life but they’re getting up, just being on the computer and punching the clock.”

There are also those who are finding value in this time to be at and work from home too, however.

“I have friends who are married as well and have kids who are like 3 or 4 and they’re starting to see the value of working from home,” Kelly said, referencing them appreciating family time more.

So what will things be like when a cure is found and things can go back to normal? She’s not sure and right now, no one else is either.

Bryce Ethridge is a reporter for The Moultrie Observer who lives in Valdosta.