On Dec. 27, 2023, I spent the afternoon playing mahjong. That was to be the last day I was able to hear the pleasing click-clacking sound of those plastic tiles as they are tumbled and mixed on the table.

I came home from my mahjong game that afternoon and reported to my husband that I had a sore throat. Darn, the start of another cold. That turned into a very bad cold, with an incessantly runny nose, sneezing and congestion. As I talked on the phone with my sister on my way to run errands, she urged me to take a COVID test. I could not understand why, since I had no cough, no loss of taste or smell, no shortness of breath. But I acquiesced to her wisdom — though not before I finished shopping the many aisles of Target, unknowingly spreading the virus to my fellow shoppers. Sure enough, the COVID test was positive. That was the beginning of the end — the end of me being able to hear the mahjong tiles, the delighted squeals of my grandson and the high-pitched tweets of the songbirds returning for spring.