Grief in the time of Covid-19
Many things in life are on a spectrum. There seems to be varying degrees of just about anything we experience, including grief, and even death itself.
Is there such a thing as a “good death”? I’m not sure, but I do know not all deaths are created equal, not by a long shot. When my Mom died in May 2018, I knew then and I know for certain now, that she died a pretty good death.
My Mom had dementia and went through her final decline starting around February, and then through March and April. It wasn’t advanced dementia, so she always recognized us and her grandchildren, but she didn’t know who the President was, or what month it was. She also didn’t worry about all of us the way she did for nearly her whole life. My siblings and I joked that when we announced a vacation, instead of her saying something like, “Why are you going to Portugal? It’s too far. Why do you have to take the kids on a plane? They don’t care about going.” Instead, she would simply smile and say, “Oh that’s nice. Have a great time!” The dementia seemed to perfectly select for optimism, and she conveniently forgot to worry about planes falling from the sky. So in some ways, the last years of her life were some of her happiest.
On Mother’s Day, May 13, 2018, my Mom went through a textbook version of a rally. I wouldn’t really know what that term meant until later, but the hospice literature and the experiences other family and friends shared rang true. A rally is when a person approaching death, fairly suddenly springs back to life in a way that may not have been seen for some time. In my Mom’s case, she simply showed a vigor and appetite she hadn’t shown in months. I knew, we all knew, that it was very likely to be her last Mother’s Day with us. I was on a mission to make it as special as I could, and so cooked many of the Lebanese dishes that she had cooked for decades for us, and knew that she loved. Most of the things I had made before, like mjadara, a simple lentil porridge served with lif’t, pickled turnips colored neon pink by beets. I made lamb and rice, my own variation of a dish my Mom usually made at Christmas of veal and rice.
She had one special request, and something that I had never tried to make before, tabbouleh, the classic Lebanese salad of minced parsley, and bulgur wheat. As with much of her cooking, my Mom’s tabbouleh was simply outstanding, and the best I ever had. I knew I had to try, so I made it and for the first time in my life realized how incredibly tedious it is. Picking enough parsley to make a large salad is an arduous affair, with no shortcuts. And to mince the parsley in a food processor was to commit a mortal sin, so it all had to be finely minced by hand with a knife. Just like my Mom always did it.
We, all of her three children, our spouses, our children, all gathered and brought all the food we made. My Mom spent her last months in a recliner in the living room, that she really only left to use the bathroom. So we brought the food to her, and she sat up, and ate, and ate, and ate some more. And everything was delicious and perfect, just like she would have made it. It was the most praise for our own efforts we ever heard from her. We couldn’t know it then, but, in many ways, this was the first day of our final vigil with her. By that evening, after we had all said our goodbyes and left her with our Dad and overnight aide, sundowning would set in. The dementia wasn’t enough to fully protect her from a deep truth she must have felt. She was dying.
Just one week later, my wife and I, my sister, my sister-in-law, and my Dad would be gathered around her in the living room. During the week, her recliner was replaced by hospice services with a hospital style bed. It was a very different Sunday morning than the week before, to say the least. My Mom spoke her final words and had her final moments of real consciousness, repeatedly saying to us all, “give me a kiss”. She literally wanted a kiss before dying. Convinced she would slip away, we did our best to stall so my brother could get there in time. We went around and around her bed, each taking a turn to give her a kiss, and kept talking to her, until my brother arrived. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life, incredibly beautiful, overflowing with emotion. A simply amazing experience that I will always cherish.
My Mom did not die that morning. She passed away three days later, on Wednesday, May 23, while we had just sat down to have some lunch. It seemed appropriate to us that she would leave this world, knowing her family was gathered nearby and eating a meal, for to feed us was to love us, and even just watching us eat brought her great joy.
I knew we were lucky and blessed to have all these experiences — to be able to say goodbye in so many meaningful ways. I read from the Bible to my Mom. My sister played Kenny Rogers music for her. My brother sat with her and shared funny memories with her. We all told her not to worry about us, that we’d all be OK. I knew that so many people don’t have any of these opportunities. I had seen friend’s lose a parent, far too young, to a sudden heart attack. In our own extended family, that had happened several times, and in some cases, the children left behind were literally still babies. I was deeply aware of this full spectrum of deaths — tragic, ugly, painful, cruel, inhuman, seemingly meaningless, random, unfair. So I was deeply grateful for what we had with our Mom.
We were not as lucky with my Dad. He died a little more than three weeks ago, on Monday, April 6, in the midst of this global pandemic.
On Friday, February 28, my wife and I dropped our kids off with her parents for a sleepover, and then visited my Dad in the nursing home where he lived. His oldest sister had died very recently, on January 15. He was the baby, and last of his siblings, and he knew it. When his sister died, something went off inside him, and his spirit, his will was gone. Without my Mom, I’m sure he felt very alone. He didn’t leave his room much, didn’t show much interest in eating, and refused any medical intervention. Because of all this, he was treated as a hospice patient, someone just waiting to die. That day, my wife and I were able to convince him to go to the dining room for his supper. We got him into a wheelchair and rolled him down the hall, and the staff was both surprised and pleased to see him out and about. My Dad, a saxophonist for many years, had resorted to singing as the saxophone became physically too difficult, so the staff and other residents loved to hear him sing. They looked forward to seeing him in the hallways, and knew he’d regale them with a song. But he hadn’t done that in weeks, and now the staff commented that he just “wasn’t the same” ever since his sister died.
We got my Dad settled at a table with some other residents, and gave him a kiss goodbye. When my wife kissed him, he even joked, and said, “Oh, that was nice. Do that again!” So she gave him another kiss, and we smiled and chuckled to each other, as it seemed, just for a moment, a touch of his spunk returned. That would be the last day we saw him. Ten days later, the state of Connecticut shut down all nursing homes to visitors. I knew this could be a final blow, as the visits were all my Dad had left.
I spoke to my Dad on his birthday, March 25, and that would be the last time I would hear his voice. He had a lot of trouble using the phone, and rarely answered it. I was glad he did that day, but there wasn’t much for him to be happy about. And, though I tried to explain to him what was happening in the world, and that the schools were closed, and that we couldn’t visit him right now because of the virus, I don’t think he really understood.
He died in the early hours of the morning, and later that day, two more residents in his nursing home died of Covid-19. At first, it appeared my Dad did not have the virus, and the staff assured us he was not sick, though they also admitted he had not been tested. Due to all these circumstances, his death certificate lists “complication of suspect Covid-19” as a secondary cause of death. In our state, he is counted as a “probable death”. The nursing homes in Connecticut, as in many other states, have been ravaged by the disease. The truth is we just don’t know for sure. It’s unlikely we’ll ever know for sure.
While knowing feels like it would be important, and I do think about it often, I tend to think about so many other things. Mostly, that I really just wish I could have seen him a few more times. I really would have liked to see him eat a good final meal. It would have been great to play some jazz for him, to maybe learn a new tune and play it for him (yes, I followed in his footsteps and I, too, am a jazz saxophonist). Basically, I wish the whole experience was a lot more like it was when my Mom died, rather than this very opposite-feeling experience I have to accept.
Grief always sucks, wherever you put it on the spectrum. Right now, it just sucks a lot more.
