Wishing good health to all the fathers out there
There’s only one thing I want for Father’s Day this year: good health.
Health for myself and all the fathers out there and, especially, health for my wife and two children and every other family.
Health is something we can’t buy and we often take for granted. I know I have. COVID -19 has changed that. I’ve been very fortunate during this pandemic. My family has been healthy and I still have a job, working from home as a Montreal Gazette news editor while the sports world is shut down by the pandemic. My 21-year-old daughter (Mcgill University) and 19-year-old son (Champlain College) are still living at home and completed their school year online.
We have been able to spend more time together than we normally would as a family and at night I’ve been sitting on my backyard deck counting my blessings.
My heart has also been broken while reading and editing stories about other fathers and families who haven’t been so fortunate during this pandemic.
The one story that touched me the most was a column by colleague Allison Hanes on Désiré Buna Ivara, who died of COVID-19 on May 20 at age 50 — seven years younger than me — leaving behind his pregnant wife, five children and a baby he will never get to meet. His wife, Amoti Furaha Lusi, caught COVID -19 first while working as a patient attendant at the Foyer Dorval nursing home and unknowingly brought it home to her family. While the rest of the family recovered, COVID -19 killed the father.
“An immigrant from war-ravaged Congo, Buna Ivara first came to Quebec alone in search of a more promising future before his wife and children eventually joined him,” Hanes wrote. “They settled in Deux-montagnes. He studied and got a job in the health-care bureaucracy. He was putting the finishing touches on his PHD, with hopes of becoming a professor. He left so much potential unfulfilled.”
A Gofundme campaign was set up to help the family, with a goal of $100,000, and it has raised more than $110,000. That will help, but it won’t bring the father back.
I will be thinking of Buna Ivara on Sunday and counting my blessings again.
I will also be thinking of former Gazette colleague Peter Wheeland, whose 85-year-old father, Ken, died from COVID-19 on April 4 at the publicly run Lasalle CHSLD after he was transferred from the private Résidence Herron in Dorval on March 17. Wheeland’s father had dementia and the now infamous Herron had wanted to hike his monthly rent by 50 per cent to $5,000 to take care of his increasing needs. The provincial coroner’s office announced last month that 51 residents at the Herron had died during the pandemic and that every one of them is under investigation.
After being transferred to Lasalle, Wheeland was unable to visit his father because of the pandemic. Two weeks after the transfer, Wheeland told the Montreal Gazette’s Kathryn Greenaway that he was only able to have one brief conversation with a social worker at the facility and at the time he hadn’t heard about the COVID-19 infections, nor was he informed.
“I wanted her to tell my father that he hasn’t been abandoned,” Wheeland told Greenaway. “That he is not alone. It’s like they kidnapped my father two weeks ago and won’t let us speak to him. I know the (health-care workers) are dealing with a difficult situation and I’m not blaming them. But there’s something wrong with the administration and its policies about releasing information.”
My mother passed away four years ago at age 86 in a South Shore CHSLD after a long and difficult battle with dementia. My sister and I got to see firsthand how bad and understaffed CHSLDS could be even before COVID -19. If there’s one good thing that might come out of this pandemic it’s that a bright light has been shone on the problem and hopefully the government will fix it.
On Sunday, I will be thinking about all the fathers — and mothers — now in CHSLDS, along with their families.
I will also be thinking of John Whitehead, who died of COVID -19 at the Herron on April 11 at age 89.
“He had a great life,” Roxanne Whitehead, John’s wife of 59 years, told the Montreal Gazette’s René Bruemmer, adding that her husband enjoyed golfing at the Arundel and Royal Montreal clubs after retiring as a dentist at age 72, before the onset of Parkinson’s disease.
Because of the pandemic, only immediate family were allowed to attend Whitehead’s funeral. His wife said she was sustained by her children — son Darrell and daughter Keira — and cherished family photos.
“You don’t appreciate the good times you are experiencing at the moment,” Roxanne told Bruemmer. “If everyone would sit down when they’re having a really good time and just close their eyes and say: ‘This is special and I’m going to remember this day because perhaps I’m not going to see it again.’ ”
If you’re fortunate enough to celebrate Father’s Day with your family on Sunday, take lots of photos and enjoy every single moment.
I know that’s what I’m going to do.