Just… Disappointed

Dearest Rachel –

I don’t know if I ever used the stock phrase uttered by television and movie dads throughout history: “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” I know one of the stories you told of your dad at his funeral went along those lines when he overheard you curse for the one and only time you did so. For my part, I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t particularly good at restraining my anger, particularly when Daniel would all but refuse to do his homework on a certain night when he had so much to complete and turn in the next day.

These days, I’ve found myself amused by our travel agent’s assertion that I’m one of the most cheerful, happy-go-lucky customers she has to deal with – especially since she knows my story, including losing you (and most significantly, given her dealings with me, the lockdown I suffered in Basel). I may try to live up to that image, but I know better about myself; I’ve not always been so calm about things, and you could certainly attest to that (although, to the best of my knowledge, my ire was never directed toward you).

But somehow, I can’t really bring myself to actually get mad this time around, although I’d wager there are some who might think I have every right to be. We were less than 48 hours – maybe closer to 36, in fact – from boarding our flight to Japan, when I received a ‘reminder’ from the cruise line about the health requirements in my email. Specifically, about the requirement that anyone wishing to board the ship would need to have been vaccinated (and presumably, up to date with said vaccinations) at least 14 days before boarding.

As reminders go, this felt like new information.

Had this been in force when I booked this journey, I wouldn’t have. And sure enough, this was, in fact, a new regulation handed down from the Ministry of Tourism (or something similar; what I do know is that the regulation was from Japan, not the cruise line). Were we coming to Japan as tourists wandering about the country, a simple test proving we were Covid-negative (which we both are, by the way – not even so much as a false positive) would be sufficient to allow us to enter the country, but in order to board a ship in Japan, there was now a requirement to have been vaccinated.

There was the briefest of hope spots where the agency thought they could wangle an exemption, if there was a health-related reason. With that dangled in front of me, I mentioned Daniel’s fear of myocarditis as a concern – not that it’s anywhere close to the real reason why he’s refused to take it, but at least it gives his rejection of it a patina of medical rationale. They went back to the authorities, who didn’t exactly refuse it, but required that it be from an actual doctor, with a doctor’s letterhead. I knew this wasn’t going to happen; theoretically, I could ask Lars to provide such a letter, but it wasn’t clear as to whether that would be either possible or sufficient, as he isn’t technically Daniel’s physician (although, frankly, I don’t know who is his doctor, truth be told), and his real reason for avoiding the shots were… complicated, to say the least.

Unlike when he refused to do his homework, I can’t get mad at Daniel for sticking to his principles, such as they may be. I may disagree with him on the vaccines, but I’m not about to deny that myocarditis is an issue for young men his age who took the shot. Moreover, like with your own complaints back in the day about flu shots, it didn’t prevent anything; I got Covid within the timeframe that I supposedly should have been protected by the vaccine. So yeah, while I don’t see it as deliberately malevolent, I acknowledge it as being decidedly ineffective – and if he doesn’t want to take it, that’s fine.

I just wish that we’d known that this wouldn’t fly a little bit sooner than right before we were about to.

It could be worse; we could already be over there, and suddenly refused entry onto the ship for this reason, leaving us with little to do in terms of being there in Japan. No tour group, no plans, very little in the way of actual knowledge of the language – it would be orders of magnitude more difficult than being on my own in Basel. At least there, I actually needed time to recover, as I was actually sick for much of the time. Here, we wouldn’t be confined, but we would be pretty much lost. Oh, it would be an adventure, no doubt, but while I can deal with adventures, I’m not entirely sure about Daniel.

So here we are, unable to get mad, but undeniably, disappointed.

Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask Lars if he could help out. Nothing ventured, after all…

Keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.