It was four years ago today, March 13, 2020 that I texted with my four siblings. I shared a photo of a t-shirt I had purchased for all of us. It was a shirt with a tree and a cardinal on each side of the tree. At the bottom left of the tree it said Mom 2012 and on the right it said Dad 2019; the year that they passed away. I told them via text that I had purchased a shirt for each of them and I wanted to take a photo together with the shirt on. We always took photos together. Well, he never got the chance to hold or wear that shirt. I would never have imagined that one month and two days later he would be brutally taken away from us and that he would join my parents.

This time of year is very hard for so many of us. So much was stolen from us. I’m sorry, my brother, that I couldn’t be there for you. I love you. Your sis.

When I think of 10+ million people who knew someone lost to the pandemic, and that count was just for someone close within a family—that huge number was not even including co-workers, neighbors, and more—and if you can add to that the number of lives still being impacted by parents or caregivers trying to function while being debilitated by long COVID, there are just SO MANY American lives that will never be the same. How can our nation just “forget” our lost loved ones and those of us left behind as bereaved or long COVID sufferers to pick up the pieces of our lives?

Traditional rituals are very important and being able to experience the community’s love and support for the grievers would help them heal. I felt so horrible not getting to have a normal funeral (actually no funeral at all) for my beloved husband, and knowing he died in the ICU unconscious on a ventilator leading to my horrendously difficult decision to remove his life support. A few weeks earlier, he was doing construction, working hard outdoors on our property and was very healthy and happy.

There are so many I know who experienced much worse—especially early in the pandemic when they could not see their loved ones at all or were hospitalized themselves while their loved one lay dying in another room.

Having people ask those questions—the “where to place the blame” questions—and callously disputing that COVID is even a real disease or saying that the hospitals just “said” it was COVID so they could “get more money” has been so painful and demoralizing on top of the trauma and grief.

Thank you, Professor Wagner, for what you said, for understanding, and for continuing this important work with Rituals in the Making.

It has been heart-wrenching to witness the grief of my mother who lost her son, my brother Johnny, when she was 90 years old. It has been almost 4 years since my brother died of Covid in the beginning of the Pandemic. My brother’s sudden and unexpected death accelerated my mother’s decline. She was so angry that he and others were not protected in the facility where he was getting short term rehabilitation following surgery. My mother never accepted that Johnny did not come home. They were very close and lived together since our dad passed over twenty years before.

Now my mother has moderate dementia and is in a nursing home where she requires skilled medical care. Every time I visit she wants me to take her home even though I had to sell her home to afford her nursing home care. Every visit she is frustrated and agitated that I don’t take her home since Johnny is waiting for her. I agree with her each time that Johnny is waiting. I do believe Johnny is waiting for our mother but in the home they will share forever.

My baby brother George was born when I was 10 . He was my living baby doll. I loved to dress him and take him for walks. My sister and I made all his Halloween costumes, many were totally creative. He was Frank Perdue, and we wrote to Frank and he sent us a bunch of rubber chickens! He was the great white hunter complete with pith helmet. No store bought costumes for this boy. I always decorated special birthday cakes for him since I took cake decorating classes.

Due to the age gap and our similar personalities, we often clashed. But there was always a deep love between us. Our entire family was big on nick names. I named Georgie Fat Head because his license plate was FH 309. One day he was particularly annoying to me and I blurted out, “OK FATHEAD” and it stuck. In return, he would refer to me and my sister as ” Dopey.” Mom called him BoBo once when she couldn’t spit out his name and that stuck as well. My brother-in-law would call him “Mahzod” –Armenian for Hairy. Best of all he was “Bad Georgie” something that stuck from him being a very curious little boy.

He could break or fix anything. But if you asked him the time … rather than just say 2pm he would tell you how to build a clock. But he did talk me through installing a new belt on my dryer. He was a real character. Too stubborn for his own good.

He just refused to believe he was sick with COVID and delayed treatment. Everyone begged him to go to the hospital but he knew better. When he finally went for the antibodies he was he was too sick–his pulse ox level was 60. He was admitted to the hospital and they tried everything to help him but it was too much for his body. He had underlying conditions which made us more frustrated that he ignored his symptoms and made it more difficult to treat him.

The only time I could speak to his Doctors was at 3 or 4am and I still wake up at that time 2 yrs later. I look at my notebook chronicling his illness, each day noting blood work results, MAP level, drug protocols, CT scans and the last question was always “full code or DNR.” Never in my wildest dreams would I think I would hear those words … not for Georgie.

My sister and I were tortured for 3 weeks of this illness that eventually took him from us. WE made the agonizing decision to finally stop treatment and take him off the vent and so at age 57 years old this fun loving, funny, hard working, ambitious stubborn guy died. The only saving grace is that she and I watched him via zoom …(Covid Rules) take his last breath. Surprisingly, it was totally peaceful–no struggling, no gasping, just 6 slow breaths and then nothing.

Camille and I just stared our computers… daring him to wake up. After all, he was so strong and stubborn we both had the secret prayer that he would defy the odds and wake up saying “see I told you so.” But that didn’t happen.

His funeral filled the Armenian church past capacity. I was stunned at how many lives he touched, how many people he’d helped. It always broke my heart that he didn’t have kids because he was wonderful with kids. All the cousins loved him. Generous to a fault, as well. At Christmas he would love to go to Kmart … last minute of Christmas Eve and shop for Blue light specials, he would call me multiple times telling me what he found. Of course he would make me wrap all the gifts. Later when he expanded his business he would cajole his employees to do this.

He was full of “Kef,” the zest and joy for life … He loved attending Armenian dances and was wild at weddings. We used to call him Twinkle toes. He was a big guy but totally light on his feet. Each time when I start to tear up I think of him and his impressions. My 2 favorites are: Imitating a camel, and Warren from ‘There’s Something About Mary’. Every time he wanted something he would do it as Warren … As in “Warren want pancakes” and he would say: “Don’t make me Rock.” When he did this we would all laugh hysterically.

I am still going through some of the pictures of when he was a kid. So cute really–gorgeous black eyes, and an impish grin–how I wish I could hold and hug him just one more time.

A recent, rainy Saturday afternoon convinced me that it was time to tackle the closet that Jody and I mockingly called the Hotel California – stuff checked in, but it never left. I opened the door and wanted to scream, overwhelmed by the piles that needed sorting. I stepped back, took a deep breath, and dove in.

There were boxes of clothes – laundered and folded – waiting to be worn again. Sadly, they no longer fit; so, they went into the clothing bin in our building’s recycling room. Somebody will be able to wear them.

Buried in the back was a set of golf clubs that hadn’t seen the lush grass of a rolling course in nearly forty years. Out it went. I also found an electric keyboard that I didn’t remember. It must have been important to Jody. I gently unzipped its tattered case only to find a tangle of wires. There was no way I could repair it. That went out as well.
I fought my way through the long-forgotten souvenirs of a life together. Suddenly, at the bottom of the pile, there it was – a flattened pancake of brown fabric. I recognized it immediately and laughed at the memories it still held.

It had started out life as a brown fedora. Jody loved that hat and used to wear it all the time, even inside the apartment. I thought he looked quite dapper. Eventually, the hat started to wear and Jody found another hat. Even so, the fedora maintained its honored place on the shelf of his nightstand.

In April 2016, we adopted a beagle we named Sugar. She had been rescued from a puppy mill where she had been locked in a cage for over four years and bred for the puppies that medical researchers so craved. We soon discovered that Sugar had never learned to play. When we brought her home, we tried to coax her to chase a ball or participate in a tug of war with a length of rope. Sugar was content to sit back and sneer at our attempts.

One day, I heard Sugar scuttling down the hallway into the living room where Jody and I were watching television. In her mouth, she clutched that brown fedora. She nestled on the floor, her paws on the brim and her chin resting on top. Jody caught sight of his hat and the battle was on.

He reached down and grabbed at the hat catching it at the brim. However, Sugar was too fast. Her mouth clamped down on the hat and, at long last, a real game of tug of war was on. Jody won that battle and returned the hat to its sanctuary on the nightstand. Sugar bided her time. Jody would go out and Sugar would grab the hat and carry it back to her resting place. She learned to sit on it so that Jody wouldn’t see it right away. Once he did, a new tug of war ensued. The hat started to show the scars of their battles – creases and tears and the stains of dog drool – marring its shape and fabric.

Sugar had her triumph when Jody ceded his ownership of the hat. She carried it everywhere with her. At night, she clutched it close as if it were one of the puppies she never had the chance to rear. From time to time, she would carry the hat to Jody hoping to entice him into another round of snatching and pulling which Jody gladly joined. The hat continued to take a beating.

After Jody passed, Sugar was as lost as I was. She would carry the hat around searching for him. She would look at me and I would ask her if she wanted me to play with her. Nothing doing. I wasn’t Jody. She would trot off to hide the hat in her bed burying it under the cushions. At some point, she understood that Jody’s absence was permanent. She started to bring the hat to me so we could play. I don’t think it was the same for her.

Sugar passed in late 2022. I didn’t have the heart to dispose of the hat so it went into the closet. Now that I’ve found it again, I’m ready to let it go. The memories of Jody and Sugar and the hat are safely stored in my memory and continue to fill my heart with joy.