I was at home, winding down from my afternoon Zoom sessions, when a phone call came in for my mom. She answered and moved to her bedroom, a sign always that it is a delicate call, with a serious situation. I heard her exclaim in anguish, and I didn't interrupt, I stayed in my room while she spoke, and I could tell she was upset.
Lately the phone always brings bad news. We have had an unbelievable string of such news since the pandemic struck, it seems as if it is flowing and the world is coming apart. It turns out our elderly neighbor, la señora P., passed away today from Covid. She had been in the hospital for the past few weeks.
About a month ago she lost her eldest son to the virus. They were all in shock, and against all the admonitions not to gather, the entire family gathered at her house, which faces ours. They should have known better, but it is no use saying this. I remember that Saturday, I saw them arriving and some of them were wearing formal clothing, and for the first time, some of them were wearing face masks. They were the type of people who never wore them when they gathered, and it wasn't because they are socially conservative and listen to Trump, they aren't, they are a Mexican family that somehow, feels a special dispensation, they felt as if it wouldn't happen to them. It did, and it claimed the eldest son, and they felt they all had to gather to break the news.
They were there all weekend, and my mom says that the next youngest son, Tony, who has been having his own health problems, related to his own arterial blockages, also arrived and, supposedly, hustled into the house, not wearing a mask. My mom, who was watching from her bedroom window, says she was more surprised that he could actually move as fast as he could, since with his heart troubles, he was shambling along from one place to another, the way my dad was doing in the final stages of his heart disease.
Well, of course disaster struck. They all fell down with Covid, it was inevitable, and they have themselves to blame. Whatever their motivations, and I acknowledge, they wanted to be there to break the news to their mom, la señora P., still, they had no business gathering, knowing that some of them were exposed. But they did, and shortly thereafter, they started succumbing to the virus.
I didn't see la señora a few days after their gathering, but I was told she was taken to her daughter-in-law-s household to be watched, because she was delicate. She was already showing signs of infection, and had no energy and could hardly breathe. She had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, and even then, the rest of the family attacked the daughter-in-law, excoriating her for having permitted an ambulance to take her to a place that they felt would not release her. As the daughter-in-law complained in a phone call to my mom, she felt she had no choice, she knew her mother-in-law was dying. The hospital didn't kill her, it was the disease, and the fact that she lasted for two weeks fighting against it is two weeks of extra life she would not have had.
Others in the family started falling sick, including Tony. He is only a year older than I am, and we used to go to the same Elementary and Junior High School before he dropped out in high school to elope with a girlfriend and start his working life. He was only a year older, and he was as sick as my 76 year old father had been, and he had also had a "marcapasos" (I can't think of the word in English right now) implanted in his body. (A pacemaker). So, he fell too, and so did his sisters, so the virus struck a cruel stroke against them, and the sisters were struggling to survive, and the mom, la señora P., was in a terrible state. Fear washed over them and was drowning them, but they held out hope, she would have to make it, she was 85 years old but she was a fighter, she was the one who would make it. But she didn't.
This past week, Tony, the other son, died of Covid, and they never got a chance to tell her because she was in a semi-coma, connected to tubes of all sorts, and her kidneys were failing her, although they were saying she was holding on and not getting worse. We all held out hope, and my mom wanted desperately to believe that her neighbor of almost 45 years, one of her close friends, would make it. But the call we received today was to tell us that she had passed away.
Covid really is making the family suffer, and it is no use blaming them, no use telling them that they did a stupid thing by gathering together after the first victim (the eldest brother) fell. As my mom says, they must know it in their hearts. And now, today, Thursday, the terrible pain of having lost a mother. They say that the other son, Andy, the youngest, is now having a terrible time with his high blood pressure. I can't image them that way, I remember them as eternally young and vital, but now, two out of the four brothers are gone, and the matriarch is gone.
This really has been a season of pain. For me, it started before the pandemic, back in 2019 when we lost my father, and it wasn't anything to do with the virus, he died because of all the other illnesses he had, but since then, it has been a string of bad news and struggles. One good thing is that we no longer have to hear Trump, he really sapped and weakened us as a nation, but everything else seems to be falling apart. We have to remains strong. I feel for the family of my neighbors, and all the pain they are suffering. I still get upset when I see other people, Anglos, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, etc., not wearing face masks, but there is nothing we can do now, they live in a mindset that will not change. The old dictum is that we can't worry about others, we have to worry about ourselves. I can't change others, and it sounds defeatist to say so, but if they won't listen, I can't do anything, I can just try not to confront them and just try to hunker down and protect my family and myself.
Covid may be with us for the future, we may all need annual vaccinations, and it may change and cause other outbreaks from now on, but we have to get a handle on it. It claimed my aunt in December, and several of my cousins, and it seems to be stalking us, but we have to remain positive.
I'm trying.
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