I returned to my hometown on my birthday, only to spend the trip surrounded by police and politicians rather than loved ones.

In the name of public safety, several members of my family had been locked away in different tiny rooms throughout downtown Springfield, Illinois. My mom was in the emergency room with a severe case of COVID-19, her second visit to the hospital in two weeks. Meanwhile, my nephew was locked up in county jail for a laundry list of offenses, and my grandmother was languishing in a poorly managed nursing home.

Instead of the usual birthday festivities, I sat in a windowless room with a half dozen socially distanced functionaries on the fourth floor of a Central Illinois courthouse, occasionally fiddling with my mask, trying to figure out how to help.