My beloved mum is greater than this virus
An additional tragedy of dying by Covid-19 is that one’s death could define one’s life. Since the death of my 87-year-old mother in New York’s coronavirus outbreak, that thought really distresses me. That the sad results of this virus might become more important than the positive consequences of my mother’s and other victims’ extraordinary lives. It should not be so.
In my mother Nadia’s case, the achievements were extraordinary. A survivor with her family of the shifting eastern European fronts of World War II. A ‘‘displaced person’’ and political refugee from Ukraine to the United States.
A trajectory from non-Englishspeaking nanny to a master’s degree in psychological social work to long-term leadership of a major social services agency helping drug-impacted families in the South Bronx. More than 50 years of marriage, working motherhood, and a much-lauded voluntary contribution to women’s non-government organisations associated with the United Nations.
In every way, my mother was greater than the coronavirus that killed her, but for its pernicious and painful way of taking the last breath from the lungs.
It is a sneaky and mean disease. Medical staff at the hospital, which is considered top-notch, believed she was recovering and had moved her out of ICU to a recovery ward.
The end was shockingly fast. Nadia’s final deterioration took place over a manner of intense minutes, including a soul-wrenching last international phone call where the sound of the respirator made it nearly impossible for us to hear each other. I can only hope that, somehow, she heard my last ‘‘I love you’’.
It is hard to think of her loneliness and horror in those final minutes. I still don’t know who was at the bedside and that feels like an act of abandonment.
It’s hard to accept, from Australia, that I couldn’t get on a plane to be a good son and offer some final comfort. There is much to be said for the religious and other rituals of death, and many, like my family, are paying an additional cost for our corona-related disconnection.
We are now asked to find ways to mourn in a void – without touch and via Zoom. I confront the consequences of my own choice to live as a globalist now that globalism, too, has died.
Our family is reflecting on the randomness of Covid-19. Nadia was fully isolated in an assisted-living facility where significant precautions were being taken, including checking the temperatures of all staff three times daily. The wicked fact of asymptomatic transmission, which appears to have happened in my mother’s situation, is especially tough when trying to make some peace with a loved one’s passing.
Today, my sister and I grapple with logistics. Across time zones and emails, it is a strange and somewhat dissociating exercise.
Organising the secure transfer of the body, talking to a funeral home about what specific protocols need to be followed, placing obituaries, and asking local friends to find a suitable outfit in my mother’s apartment. It’s more than surreal – planning a burial that none but a sole priest is likely to be at.
Yesterday, my Sydney-based son headed out on his bike to photograph rock pools by the sea at dusk. When I saw them on my phone, I recalled him at about five, proudly taking his ‘‘American’’ grandmother by the hand and setting out to explore an Aussie beach. When life was real. When it was connected by texture, beauty and love – not optic fibre. When life mattered more than the manner of a death. Vale Nadia Shmigel. – The Age
It is hard to think of her loneliness and horror in those final minutes.