My wife’s mom, Arnette Reeg, died on Saturday, April 13, of COVID-19. She was 87. Officially, she will be counted as having “underlying medical conditions.” Those are the official statistics that will be reported, but they fail to tell so much of the story.
Arnette was a loving, caring mother who had a close relationship with each of her five children. Her son lives in Texas, and that limited his ability to visit her, at least in person. Her four daughters all live locally, and they all visited her frequently. Hardly a day went by without at least one of her daughters coming by to see her.
But that had to end in mid-March, when the assisted living facility where she had been a resident for nearly four years went on lockdown, and would not allow any family members to visit. So they called her instead, every day, until they got a call on Friday, April 3, in the evening, with worrisome news. Arnette wasn’t feeling well, and her dementia, normally mild, had spiked. The assisted living said that she would be taken by ambulance to the hospital.
The daughters rushed to the hospital, because that’s what you do when you find out that your mom is being taken there by ambulance. But they couldn’t give her a hug, or hold her hand, or even say comforting words to her. Non-medical personnel were kept strictly away from the emergency entrance.
So, initially, they waited and prayed. Arnette was tested for COVID-19 that Friday evening, but the test results weren’t back and the bad news wasn’t communicated to the family until Monday. Arnette was tough, and for the first several days, her condition was fairly stable, until it started to really deteriorate. Then the doctor called my wife’s sister on Thursday to relay the devastating news that he didn’t expect her mom to live more than another 24 hours. She held out longer than expected, and finally succumbed on Saturday afternoon.
As to those “underlying medical conditions” that seem to be reported by way of explanation whenever an elder dies of COVID-19, it doesn’t seem fair to say that Arnette had already been sick. She really hadn’t been. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, but that had been the case for many, many years. She was mildly demented, but a normal progression of Alzheimer’s would suggest that she would have been around for several more years. She died because of coronavirus, pure and simple.
The truly heartbreaking thing was that she had to spend those last eight days of her life alone in a hospital bed. She wondered why none of her daughters came to visit her, even once. Of course, they didn’t because they couldn’t. Her only visitor was the priest who bravely agreed to place himself in harm’s way to administer her Catholic last rites.
In fact, her children couldn’t even talk to her very often, because she didn’t have her cell phone with her. Conversations with her were limited to a minute or to, when an overworked nurse would put her on her hospital room phone to speak ever-so-briefly with one of her children. They had time to ask how she was feeling, and to tell her they loved her, and finally to say a last goodbye, but that was about it.
For almost the entire last month of Arnette’s life, none of her children was able to be with her in person, to give her a hug or a kiss, to hold her hand or comfort her. Just as bad, they couldn’t even be with each other in person. They had to talk things over, and cry together, over the phone. In those circumstances, FaceTime discussions are both a blessing and a curse.
Arnette’s late husband, from whom she had been widowed for many years, had given his life to public service, first in the military and then as a firefighter. Arnette will be buried alongside him in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. But even that will have to wait, and it will be an odd experience.
Of course, there can’t and won’t be any kind of service for her at the funeral home or her church. Some time around April 24 – they don’t even know yet because the number of deaths has already overwhelmed the system – she will finally be buried.
A limited number of close family members will be able to follow the hearse to the cemetery, but they will have to watch from their cars as her casket is lowered into the ground. Only after the funeral home personnel have left will they be able to get out of their cars to approach her grave. A priest will say a few prayers, and they’ll then need to approach, one couple at a time, to say goodbye one last time. Whether they will temporarily ignore social distancing requirements to hug each other and cry, we won’t know until the time comes.
The assisted living facility where Arnette lived has seen an outbreak that has infected numerous residents and staff members. My wife and her siblings are understandably angry and upset and asking themselves whether the facility should and could have done a better job of protecting their mother from contracting COVID-19. But even if it was the case that the facility was negligent, they will have no legal recourse.
Under Illinois Executive Order 2020-19, health care institutions and workers were given immunity in the case of any coronavirus-related death or illness except in the case of “willful misconduct.” Generally speaking, that sounds like a reasonable approach, but when your mother just died and the residents of most other long-term care facilities have so far been safe, “generally speaking” can be a tough standard to accept.
From now on, I won’t be able again to look at any COVID-19 death as “just another sad statistic.” As with Arnette, I’ll know that the underlying story would tell even greater tales of sadness. Let’s just hope and pray that future casualties are as limited as possible, and let’s all do everything we reasonably can toward assuring that’s the case.
Sincerely,
Wes Coulson
#COVID