Our love of baseball started with our dad. He would tell us about his playing stickball–this old fashioned version of baseball–when he grew up in New York City. He used a broomstick as a bat and a rubber ball and it was a very popular sport back in the day. The rules were the same as for baseball. It was played locally as the streets became the ball field. Johnny and I grew up loving baseball too. I have such fond memories of our dad taking us to see the Mets at the Polo Grounds as young kids … Johnny and I went to many N.Y. Mets games together at Shea Stadium and watched so many games on TV together.

For Johnny’s 60th Birthday I took him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. We loved the museum’s collection of historic baseball artifacts, photographs, and documents. This trip was one of so many wonderful memories of my brother.

About a week before he died, we were looking forward to baseball season and going to future games together. Tragically he died of Covid, on a ventilator, on April 11, 2020. I lost my brother and best friend and I miss him everyday. I hope for Johnny’s sake and my dad’s sake they have baseball in heaven.

When I think about five years ago, in the month of March, I never could have believed that April would turn my life and countless others into such grief. I lost my husband on April 14, 2020–a call from the hospital at 5:20 telling me he passed when I was just speaking with him at 4:10. How could this disease reek such havoc in a matter of an hour?

I have been one of the lucky ones.I have a support system in place with Covid survivors and with my Covid group the WTF on Monday evenings. At a moments notice I can call them day or night and they understand.

It is a horrible feeling to feel so lost without your person and to try and make a new life. It’s been five years but I know that he isn’t coming back and I have to choose life. To live and not to just exist. But Covid still is hell and will continue because no one cares and they didn’t care then. If you weren’t touched then you just made sourdough bread.

My mom may be gone, but her memory lives on in my heart. She was the best—always knowing how to make me smile, offer a comforting hug, or engage in meaningful conversations. Though it’s been five years, the pain feels like yesterday. Covid took her, but I’ll forever cherish the memories we built together.
-Pablo Lopez Jr.

***

Mommy’s story is that although we were no longer children, as a mother she still cared and was aware of us. She always kept us in his prayers. We also had to ask him for the blessing because if she didn’t, he’d take it out in your face. She was such an amazing mom.
-Rosa I. Santiago

***

One memory I won’t ever forget about mom is when she was staying over at my place. She was cooking one of her great meals one night when all of a sudden, I heard her singing and dancing. I started video recording her without her realizing it, and when I finally spoke, she got startled, but immediately, we both started laughing. I look at that video from time to time. It brings a smile to my face, along with the tears of not being able to see her do it, once more, for me to see. One day, we’ll both share that memory, and just like that day, we’ll both laugh once again!
-Omar Lopez

***

One of my treasured memories of my mom is when she come over to my place. Two to three times a week, since we live nearby. I would catch a glimpse of her through the window, bag in hand, carrying freshly baked bun bread for our breakfast together. Those mornings were filled with laughter and love as we cooked, chatted, and shared stories. Afterwards, we’d take leisurely strolls around the park or nearby shops, enjoying every moment together. This heartwarming ritual is forever etched in my memory and my mom’s loving spirit.
-Beverly Rosario

***

My mom was a true angel during my pregnancy. She’d cook my cravings at any hour, just to see me smile. Every night, she’d send me a goodnight text or voicemail, her soothing voice whispering words of love. Even now, I treasure those voicemails, replaying them to hear her loving tone and feel her warmth. Her unwavering love and care are memories I’ll forever hold close to my heart.
-Ruth D. Lopez

COVID-19 took my husband’s life. Other than being 67 and taking medicine for slightly high blood pressure, he was extremely healthy. Mike was very physically active and had been constructing a duplex for our two special needs adult kids with his own two hands and rarely had anyone help him with that huge project. He was strong. He was also a professor and a musician, so he had very good lungs and didn’t smoke or drink.

I have not been able to wrap my head around why he got so sick and died in the summer of 2021 from this virus. The only thing he hadn’t done was get the vaccine. He was waiting until he finished the last part of the project (approx. one month away) before he did it, in case he had side effects or just couldn’t work on the duplex for a couple of days if it made his arm too sore. And what also bothers me is that, by this time, there were monoclonal antibody infusions available (but most of us didn’t hear about them yet), yet he was not ever offered that option. Yet, the very next week after he was admitted to the hospital, my daughter (who’d caught COVID from him), was given that antibody treatment at the very same hospital. Was ageism involved? Is that why they didn’t even mention the antibodies to my husband?

All these questions still haunt me. I know of only one other person in my entire county (pop. about 21,000) who died from this virus during the entire pandemic. What did I do wrong (took him to the wrong hospital? waited too long? trusted our clinic which gave only one instruction – “stay home and treat it like the flu”?) or what did he do wrong? These questions still haunt me as I see the 4th anniversary season coming up a few months from now.

In addition to the lack of support from our PCP and clinic, such as giving us some indication of what warning signs to watch for while he “stayed home and treated it like the flu”, I also have had to deal with living in a “red” state where people still scoff and act like this was not even a real illness and on social media, shortly after he died, I had total strangers saying such hurtful and hateful things to me. For instance, I’d responded to a post by our health department about vaccinations to encourage people to get them because if he’d had his, my husband might have lived, only to have someone reply to me, a newly widowed grieving wife, that “They paid you to say that!”. Another person, on a different post, had the gall to tell me that “the only reason he died was because you took him to the hospital!” I engaged with that person and asked him to consider what he would have done in my shoes … would he have “just let his loved one get worse and worse on the couch until they died at home?!?” Eventually, this aggressive person with his unfounded very strong opinion, got the point and backed off. No one talks about that kind of trauma for the surviving family members. I still see it today, as neighbors talk derisively about the pandemic, in front of me… people who know me, knew Mike, and know what killed him. And our very own country! No National Memorial! No kindness or caring like other victims of natural or violent acts receive. It has been painful and isolating. No one ever demands to know if a cancer patient or a person killed in a car accident had “any pre-existing” conditions, do they?

If it were not for a special “COVID-19 Loss Support for Families and Friends” Facebook group I found, and a few other grassroots resources like WhoWeLost.org that have helped those of us who went through (and still go through) this very traumatic experience a safe place to share with and support each other, I’m not sure how we COVID-19 widows/widowers, parents, children, and friends who lost people during the pandemic would have made it this far. I am so grateful for the people I’ve met who truly understand. Because America doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to. I so wish our nation could do something significant to honor the 1.22 million fellow Americans we lost in such an awful way.

The steady stream of screeching sirens has subsided. The man across the street who blasted “New York, New York” on his boombox from his fire escape, every night at 7pm, has gone silent. The pots and pans we all banged on to accompany him sit silently in their storage places. Even so. I still remember.

It’s been almost 1,800 days since I last heard your voice. My last living memory is you, waving the ASL sign for “I love you,” as the EMTs loaded you into the back of the “bus” as they call the ambulance in police dramas on TV. In retrospect, the back of the “bus” seems to be appropriate given how those infected by the novel coronavirus were then, and even now are, ignored, forgotten, and considered second class citizens.

ER doctors deliver dire news. Frantic phone calls to family far away widen the circle of pain. I can’t be with you, to comfort you, to touch you. I’m so scared. You must be, too, caught up in this whirlwind of unfamiliar faces, voices and constantly beeping machinery. I cannot sleep. I stare at the phone daring it to ring. I win that first battle as I drift off to a restless sleep.

A late morning update. A drug has given you the chance to breathe a little better. It’s too much to hope for. By sunset, you struggle again, gasping for life-giving air. New medications are ordered.

Another night on the roller coaster of hope and despair. Signs of improvement, soon followed by the descent into disappointment. I want to see you. Through the wonder of technology, you appear on the screen of my phone as a nurse holds her phone, sealed in a plastic bag, close to you. I can barely see your face covered with an oxygen mask; tubes splayed all around you. I say hello and take the raising of your eyebrows as a sign that you recognize my voice. I tell you how much I love you and that I’m praying for you to come home to me. I dissolve into tears and the nurse ends the call.

Saturday afternoon brings the news that there are no more miracles. The hospital wants to move you to end-of-life hospice care. They need me to sign the authorization papers. Their plans do not seem to include me. Sunday morning rolls around and the end is near. The doctors ask if I want to see you. What a question! Of course, I do.

The normally raucous hospital is silent, all the doors locked. I wave at a security guard who comes and lets me in. They dress me up in a moon suit and lead me to where you lie peacefully, breathing ever so gently. You are not conscious, but the nurses tell me that hearing is the last sense to go. So, I hold your hand and talk to you, remembering and retelling our shared history. Soon, I have to leave. Others need their time to say goodbye to their loved ones. I kiss you one last time on the forehead. The heart monitor jumps a bit. I’m sure you know it’s me. Back home, just thirty minutes later, a final call from the hospital. You have broken free from the bounds of earth, released to enjoy the rewards of paradise.

I know you are well. I see you when you come to visit. Your ethereal spirit standing guard at the side of the bed as I lay sleeping. I am grateful for your presence.

I’m now part of a horde of unexpected mourners. Alone, at first. Isolated. Confused. Dazed. But slowly, I unite my grief with that of others as we tend to each other and carry ourselves forward along a path where no one knows will lead. The journey is still ongoing. We travel together, a family of choice, accompanied by our loved ones, in their stories we have shared and continue to tell.

The world wants to move on from COVID-19, to pretend it never wreaked havoc in lives across the globe. But, for millions of Americans, the pall of sickness and death still shrouds them in sadness and fear and, yes, anger. Despite the vulgar crassness of so many, we survivors continue to proclaim the legacy of those we lost. They will always be remembered.