Josh Galemore / Arizona Daily Star/

We are all in this together. When times get tough, Tucsonans come together and help one another. That is what makes this big city with a small-town feel such a great place to live.

This weekly series shares what life is like for your fellow community members while sheltering in place.

Close your eyes and let

The storyteller work

While sheltering in place, to borrow a popular term from our sister state California, I’ve thought of a few COVID-19-related political cartoons. However, my total lack of drawing ability presents a bit of a conundrum. So, I’m trying out a new genre, the storyteller’s political cartoon.

In the first cartoon, two men are walking into a drugstore. One is obviously wealthy, having just exited his Porsche convertible in an expensive suit. The other guy appears down on his luck. The rich guy wants a pack of top-of-the-line plush toilet paper, three-ply quilted. The second guy can afford only a single role of generic one-ply. The clerk shrugs his shoulders and points to empty shelves. The caption reads: “Lack of toilet paper: the great equalizer.”

The second cartoon takes place at Tucson International Airport, where all travelers, as well as personnel, are now required to wear masks. Caption reads: “Every mass gathering should be a mask gathering.”

Then there’s this: With Dr. Anthony Fauci giving hope that by early 2021 a vaccine should be ready, writers for the dictionary’s latest edition wish to eliminate current expressions that will have become obsolete by then, such as social distancing, PPE, essential services, and more. The caption reads: “Wishful thinking?”

And finally: Two young women are enjoying some long-overdue retail therapy. One is wearing a tank top with the letter “S” on it (superwoman), shorts, flip flops and no mask. The other is in a hazmat suit complete with hood, booties over her shoes, gloves and a mask. Caption reads: There has to be a happy medium.

— Barbara Russek

Portraits memorialize Children lost too soonDuring this time of social distancing and stay-in-place recommendations, people are finding creative ways to provide services to their community.

Many are making fabric masks, remotely teaching schoolchildren sheltered at home or compiling stories of essential workers. With the current restrictions, the Tucson Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS) team members are doing all of this and more.

NILMDTS is a nonprofit organization of volunteer photographers and dispatchers who provide heirloom-quality portraiture for families experiencing infant loss at or near birth.

Usually, our team has responded to up to a call a week from four major hospitals in Tucson for this valuable service. With the restrictions on visitors in the hospitals and stay-in-place recommendations, we have temporarily been unable to provide this service at this same level.

To help fill this gap, a new medical affiliate program has been developed to train any practitioner that deals with patients experiencing perinatal loss and will help them to reach families that NILMDTS is unable to serve due to availability, time of day, condition of the baby, or shortened timelines.

With the knowledge and skills taught, providers will be able to give their bereaved parents the best patient experience possible under the circumstances.

The best practice will be to contact the local NILMDTS team via our dispatch line (520-329-5360) to provide quality heirloom portraiture, and we plan to continue this level of service as soon as is possible.

In the meantime, the medical affiliate program will help meet the needs of these families while several of our team members are serving as digital retouch artists, providing retouching of submitted NILMDTS images.

Medical practitioners and others interested in learning more should go to NowILayMeDownToSleep.org

— Karen Wright, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Tucson-area coordinator

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Contact Johanna Eubank at jeubank@tucson.com