The governor shut down most of life as we knew it a couple months back, but by golly, he declared real estate an “essential service.” Humans need shelter, after all. They might not “need” second, third or fourth shelters, as predominate in our real estate market, but I digress.

I am thanking goodness on behalf of a home buyer client. In March, her purchase of an Edgartown home was all over but the shouting and some leftover trifles on the builder’s to-do list when whammo: State of emergency. Shuttered offices. Social distancing. A kibosh on building activity and on the required inspection of the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors by the fire chief. The buyer got pandemic jitters about traveling to the Island, and the lender frowned upon closings by proxy.

Oh, and the closing attorney was in quarantine due to a Covid exposure. At a real estate closing. In his own Vineyard Haven office.

The parties agreed to a one-month delay. Just maybe, circumstances would lighten up. They didn’t, save the attorney emerging from quarantine, Covid-free. But hey, real estate was essential. With stunning immediacy, lenders and government offices loosened their officious corsets and enabled the property transfer to go forth. Technology was at the ready. No need for lenders and lawyers and buyers and sellers and brokers to juggle calendars and convene in the same place at the same time. No one had to sprint through traffic to deliver a check to the Land Bank office and the deed to the county courthouse before the Registry office’s closing bell.

FaceTime and I led the buyer on her pre-closing walk through of the property. Signatures and money and deeds sped their way through cyberspace. Emails and text messages imparted updates to the parties in their disparate locations. The transaction was buttoned up neat, sweet and on time.

It was sort of sad.

I spent closing day alone in sweats, in my home office over my garage. Come late afternoon, I refreshed a web screen every few minutes until I saw the deed appear, digital and dry. The deal was official. That was it. There was none of the closing day tingle that often compares to a graduation, more or less. I wore no lipstick or client clothes. I met no starry-eyed buyer in person for the eagle-eyed walk-through. I didn’t gather with seven or eight people around a table, as if at a dinner party, each of us expectant in our own way. There was no summation or signing of paper after paper from a heaping stack. No light, nervous chit chat above it all. No tiny flutter of the heart with the passing of the house keys, often with seller narration: “This one is for the bulkhead; that one is for goodness-knows-what.”

And in the end, no smiles, congratulations, thank-you’s, handshakes, hugs or token gifts. No return to the office to the woot woots of colleagues. Even the rare slugfest of a closing is better experienced in person. You can hand-hold your client. You can throw a little side-eye to the worthy.

Our season of coronavirus has sucked the life out of many a Vineyard livelihood. A restaurateur observes the quiet caverns of his eateries. He may be staying afloat on takeout business, if just barely, but that doesn’t compensate one bit for the missing thrill of the throngs. The laughing, the eating, the hoisting. The slaps on the back. The Island’s artisan shows and flea markets are going online a la Amazon this summer, and my photographer friend wails. She won’t be staging tents in the meadows or a booth at the Grange. There will be no customer friends to greet. No conversations about her latest images, no seeing how tall the kids have grown.

To us service providers, patrons aren’t mere dollar signs. They fill our purses, if we’re lucky. They fill our passions, if we’re luckier. I can’t wait to hug a client again.

Shelley Christiansen is a freelance writer living in Oak Bluffs.