Yeh-yeh is in the hospital. He has a fever and a cough, and it’s officially been diagnosed as pneumonia. They tested him for COVID-19. I am aware – now, more than ever – of fear.

I’ve felt this fear before, those times when people I loved were suddenly faced with intense illnesses or death. My grandfather, at 98, has battled a lot. He’s survived a lot. But COVID-19 is different, and I think about him alone on a hospital bed, disoriented by the lights and the noise. His English is basic, but nowhere good enough to understand the situation. Yet visitors aren’t allowed in the hospital, even to translate, and all I can hope for is that someone speaks Cantonese well enough to be by his side.

When I was a freshman in college, yeh-yeh had a stroke that sent him to the hospital. It was my first time living away from home and the first time I had to really confront the thought of not being there if something bad were to happen. As I grew up and moved farther and farther away, it was a reality that became almost inescapable, and by the time I moved back to California, I was just relieved to be a 45-minute plane ride away from some of the worst moments of my life.

But now, it didn’t matter how close I was. If yeh-yeh’s test comes back positive, I could be a 10-minute walk away and it wouldn’t make a difference because I still wouldn’t be able to see him, to try to make him laugh, to hold his hand, to pretend I wasn’t crying.

And, suddenly, I’m mad at myself. Why didn’t I try harder to retain my Cantonese? Even if yeh-yeh had a phone I could reach him at, my limited Chinese and his limited English would clash. It worked when we were in person, but over a phone line or even a video call, it didn’t quite make sense.