Mourning # 20

Mourning # 20

 

And now – double lockdown

we couldn’t go out except for necessities

now necessities aren’t necessary

what is? taxes and death?

is there any more severe measure

our leaders could adopt? – yes.

there is permanent lockdown

there is never go out ever again

death-row solitary-confinement life, life-

not-life – there is no sun underground

triple lock down for all, some now

some next month, we’re all bound;

headed there soon, to the land of doom

that’s banal, but true, the banal truth.

 

---- Alexa Rose Veit, a teenager, 15,

and a cancer survivor from Kentucky and

a special needs individual contracted

leukemia in 2019. In 2020 she and her mother

began experiencing symptoms of the 

coronavirus and both tested positive and were

hospitalized. Alexa’s older sister also tested

positive as did their grandparents who were

hospitalized, also in Nashville. Her mother

survived; Alexa did not.

 

Her high school, Ballard Memorial, wrote

“Our world is a little less bright without Alexa

in it…. We will miss her special kind of mischief,

her infectious smile, and the laugh that never

failed to light up a room.”

 

 

Mourning # 19

Mourning # 19

 

All my life I’ve loved God and Jesus

Christ, my personal savior, who

protects us always if we renounce sin.

I went to church at the invitation

of our Pastor and Praised the Lord.

We sang and prayed and holiness

reigned. We said Peace Be Unto You

and hugged and hugged and sang

and prayed. We knew we were

violating the new laws but we proudly

held to the old higher laws. Confident our faith,

not demon masks, would protect us. So many 

sinners out there looking at their inter-net 

and dreaming of riches in this life, but we … we …

 

---- A Michigan couple, Leslie and Patricia

McWaters, both died from Covid-19 on

November 24^th. They had been married for

47 years. Leslie, known as LD, was a truck

driver and a veteran in the US Naval Reserve.

Pat was an RN who spent 35 years in 

the operating room at Foote Allegiance Hospital

in Jackson, Michigan, her home town. LD was also

a Jackson native.

 

Pat was the boss; LD was the joker, ‘the king

of one-liners.’ But Pat got the last laugh as her

daughter, Joanna Sisk, imagined that Pat went

first and then said like always, “LD, it’s time to go!”

 

The couple loved dancing at the bar where they met.

They loved playing cards with their friends.

They drove their 1959 Corvette to car shows.

They are survived by two daughters and three

grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

 

 

Mourning # 18

Mourning # 18

 

We could drink this whole bottle

of Mom’s best bourbon, but we’d

have to toast with every sip an’

I’m not sure we could think of

enough good things to say about

the old bat, and I have to pick up the kids from ballet.

 

After his divorce like twenty years ago

he lived alone and now he died

alone and old with the television on

when the neighbors called the cops

because of the smell. Evidently

he got sick and just surrendered to the pain and its relief.

 

The only person that she told was her brother

that her job caring for dying COVID patients

weighed on her so much that she’d almost 

rather die, neither took the remark seriously

but then she got pneumonia from the virus

and told her brother, just before she went into

the ICU that she never meant what she’d said

she was just tired and depressed and angry at the government.

 

Every story is a story.

 

---- Han Sim (Kim) Hildebrand grew up in

a fishing village on the island of Dura-Ri

in South Korea where she suffered from hunger

in her childhood. She was 4 feet 11 inches tall.

She married an American serviceman and moved

to Missouri. She had to learn English. She knew

no other Koreans in her new home. Her marriage

didn’t last. Her second marriage didn’t either.

Then she married Jim Hildebrand, who called her

“the mouse that could fight the lion.” They were

married for 32 years until her death from Covid.

They built a thriving vegetable business. 

 

Han Sim seemed to have beaten the coronavirus

after a two-month hospital stay. She was weaned off

the ventilator, she was in good spirits, smiling and

waving. The nurses said, “She’s like a Houdini, we

can’t believe how fast she’s come back.”

 

She was an inspiration and a model of strength

to her husband and children and everyone else

who knew her.

 

 

 

 

Mourning # 17

Mourning # 17

 

My face is numb

I won’t slap it

I cannot smell or taste

all white noise

my eyes dart

I move arms and legs

like a robot

that time

I choked in a restaurant

that time we

made love

on a dark night train

neither of us

could dance

but we did anyway

in the kitchen

-- my heart is broken.

-- my life is over.

-- I cannot say goodbye.

-- help me.

 

---- Dr. Susan Moore, a black physician

posted on social media how she was denied

pain relief at an Indiana hospital.

she had to beg for proper medical care and

was discharged too early. she was outraged

because her treatment, as a black woman,

was inferior. she documented her stay on a

video recorded from her hospital bed. many

of her black peers supported her claim of

unequal treatment based on race.

 

“… when we find ourselves as patients, we are

disrespected, devalued & dismissed.”

 

Susan Moore, 52, died in Indianapolis

of COVID-19 which she contracted while

assisting her own patients.

 

A spokesperson for Indiana University

Health North would not comment on Dr. Moore’s

allegations citing privacy concerns.

 

Mourning # 16

Mourning # 16

 

I do not deserve to live above ground

surviving in the blue the green

yellow orange and burnt red skies

touching hard and soft earth with my soles 

and the birdsong!

 

Burial and cremation, roughly the same

either way down to the molten core

that black hole that sucks us all in

very slowly so the world won’t collapse.

the birdsong!

 

‘Better you than me’ is a song no one

should sing, a national anthem played before

every shift change at the Covid ward.

my eyes are so tired, my tears are so lost.

the bird.

 

---- US Republicans have an anti-mask platform.

They have called the coronavirus a hoax.

They hold superspreader events to infect those present

and anyone they encounter. Many have COVID,

some have died.

 

Luke Letlow, 41, was elected to Congress from 

Louisiana in a runoff, he died of the bug before

he could be sworn into office. He is survived by

his wife, Julia Barnhill Letlow and two young children.

 

His family released a statement: “The family appreciates

the numerous prayers and support over the past days

but asks for privacy during this difficult and unexpected

time.”

 

A special election will be called to fill the seat.

 

 

Mourning # 15

Mourning # 15

 

What would you say if we met

in the ICU, or at a funeral or wake

in a parking lot, masked up and

distanced, I only see your eyes

and your body under your clothes

if you were attracted too, equal, 50/50

the ideal match – let’s have sex

have you had a swab or the vaccine?

have you tested negative in the last 14 days?

have you been exposed to anyone

who has COVID even with no symptoms?

do you now or have you ever had

the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)

you know, I think I’ll wait

for sex love attraction touch anything

until this all is all over if ever

like Ken and Barbie dolls

more valuable

in the original plastic-

wrapped cardboard boxes.

 

---- Holly Figueroa O’Reilly writes today:

My husband has been feeling poorly

for a few days and decided to go in

to be tested for COVID-19. Instead,

we just found out that he has AML:

acute myeloid leukemia. Or I should say,

‘he’ found out. Alone. They won’t let me

visit him. Because of COVID-19. 

You probably don’t know my husband 

and for that, I am truly sorry that you haven’t

met the best man I’ve ever known. This is

a guy who opted to work with COVID-19

patients in the ICU instead of tele-health

because he couldn’t just sit by and watch.

For months, he spent 12+ hour days in the

ICU taking care of COVID19 patients.

He left his practice (he’s a sleep medicine

specialist) in order to volunteer in the ICU

because they were short-staffed. He watched

people die without their families.

            He held iPads up so families could say

goodbye to dying COVID19 patients and watch

their family members take their last breaths. He 

stripped off his scrubs in the garage and showered

before coming up to see his family at night,

if anyone was still awake.

            I could go on and on about how amazing

he is, but I’m completely broken. Please spare

a thought for my hubs tonight. He went from 

thinking he might have COVID to getting a bone

marrow biopsy, chemotherapy, and a minimum

4-6 week hospital stay within the course of a few

hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mourning # 14

Mourning # 14

 

Sadness, emotional pain

D.W. Winnicott believed that sad crying

was “the psychological root of valuable

musical experiences in later life”

a sad face is indicated by small pupils,

in Spencer’s Faerie Queene sadness is

“a marker of spiritual commitment”

seasonal affective disorder (SAD) associates

lack of light to sadness as serotonin

levels drop. Prolonged sadness can

become depression unless it does not. A

traumatic event like a break-up or firing

can cause sadness, as can the loss of

1,950,000 people (so far) worldwide to

the hungry beast.

 

---- Erika Becerra, 33, couldn’t wait for the birth

of her second child. She died 18 days after giving birth

She never got to hold her baby. Erika was healthy,

had no underlying conditions. Her son, Diego, was born

healthy. After the birth Becerra’s oxygen levels dropped

and she was intubated. She died on December 3.

She had had a baby shower in October with her husband

Diego and young daughter, Erika Guadalupe, but was never

able to hold her newborn son, Diego. Erika Becerra, a

strikingly beautiful woman, was described as “selfless

and caring.” Her brother told CNN while sobbing, “For her

other people’s happiness was her happiness.” She could

have been infected during a prenatal hospital visit. Death

from COVID-19 in pregnant women is considered “uncommon.”

No one else in Erika’s family tested positive for the virus.

She was 33.

Mourning # 13

Mourning # 13

 

Before I slip into the dimension of mist

so thick I can’t see my arms or legs

before intubation ventilation compensation

I want to say one last word: not blame

or love or regret or stay home or

mountain top or sunset or rosebud

 

I know what not but not what

 

surf’s up, rock ‘n roll, peace out

the name of my first cat, remember that?

I get one chance, why waste it?

sex, money, fame, I want to live …

I want to learn how to fly …

maybe if I wrote it on my hand …

if I only had my glasses …

I don’t wear glasses …

 

---- Rose Mary Blackwell, 65, and her husband Paul Blackwell, 61, of Grand Prairie, Texas died of the novel coronavirus within minutes of one another holding hands. Holding hands like they had been for 30 years of marriage. They felt ill and missed a family Thanksgiving for the first time. The next day they were hospitalized. Their sons, Shawn and Brandon, remembered their final struggle. “It did give us some sense of closure that they both went together.” They all said goodbye by video chat. Then, at the end, the nurses moved them together so they could hold hands, and they let the sons, Shawn and Brandon, come in in hazmat suits and hold hands with them too after the parents were taken off life-support. Their souls departed together on December 13, 2020.

 

The Blackwells were both educators at the Grand Prairie Independent School District. They were due to retire this year to enjoy their 20 grandchildren. They are mourned by former students and colleagues, and a large number of friends and family. Paul was black; Rose Mary was Hispanic. They died holding hands.