When I think about four years ago, April 2020, I lost my husband to Covid. I lost my job, the one I loved, I lost my husband’s social security and I was too young at the time to collect. However my bills and mortgage still came. I couldn’t get in touch with anyone from the NYC pension office. So, for four months, no money came in. I was alone. No one came because of Covid. I did survive, like so many of us. But it still bothers me when people say you are strong. I say I am resilient because I had no choice.

Here is to all us survivors who managed to come out of the tsunami …

Me and Stephani were looking up at the night sky. After a few minutes there was a shooting star right where we were looking. We both said “thank you Donovan.”

I miss you so much …

As I look up to the sky, I tell you I bought a house.

I wake up each morning and for a second everything is okay till I realize you are gone.

I want to talk about you all the time but when I start to I just freeze. I am scared of my emotions.

This is your third Angel Anniversary, I still can’t believe it. Covid took you and it’s still so unbelievable. Missing you Donovan, so much. I love you.

The current political climate and its continued denialism and obfuscation of the pandemic sets my brain on fire. Here’s our truth: Our father died alone on an iPad (being held by a kind nurse wearing a space suit) and that image is seared into my memory forever. Don’t tell me this is irrelevant. More of us must speak out. This must not be swept under the universe’s rug.

My dad and my grandpa died about 90 minutes apart; dad first. We didn’t find out about grandpa until the next morning.

My extended relative threw a birthday party for her one year old with around 40 people, including my grandparents. This was before vaccines and my grandparents were in their 80s. My dad did not attend this party, but the virus did. The next week, another extended relative held a Thanksgiving gathering. Again, there were too many people in too small of space. My grandparents were not well enough to travel to this gathering, possibly due to the virus, but another extended relative picked them up. Again, my dad did not attend.

My dad lived the closest to his parents and, along with my stepmom, helped them out with many things. It is a near certainty that he contracted the virus from them, his parents. Grandma’s hospital stay was short, but grandpa’s was nearly a month until it ended… he ended. Dad’s was not quite as long, he even got to come home for a brief bit before going back in and succumbing. His death was likely due to a mixture of remdesivir damaging his liver and his hope being crushed by the collapse in his condition. The drugs were our hope and it was the hope that killed.

Literally, I lost two family members that day, two of my best. In reality, I lost almost an entire side of my extended family and I barely know anyone on my deceased mom’s side. There is so much blame to go around, so many wrongs. Selfishness, mainly, and taking advantage by family members of a father and grandfather who had dementia. Grandpa was never likely to make it to the other side of the pandemic, with his age and medical history. To me, that meant we should do more than CDC guidelines, not less because he and they were impatient. I hope those parties were to die for.

My kids have only very young memories, stories, and thankfully pictures, of their grandpa. Outside of our house, he was one of the most important people in our lives.

Four months to the day, the state had a ribbon cutting for Ohio’s pandemic memorial. It is at the state park nearest to where they lived and a place where we spread some of my mom’s ashes as she held it almost sacred. I cannot see myself ever going back to that place now; those memories are tarnished.

I cannot find words awful enough to describe my grief. I doubt I ever will. I will not find the words, nor will my grief end. I feel cheated, though so many others have even worse stories. Maybe writing this out here will bring a modicum of catharsis down the road, but not today.