Tracing the path toward loss: A COVID story

He had been ill for two weeks. Two weeks at home, expecting to get better, like his wife had. But the fever lingered and then worsened, and when he became increasingly short of breath he returned to the emergency room and this time was deemed sick enough to be admitted. Too late for an antiviral infusion. Too unimportant to have received the monoclonal antibody.

He spent two weeks on the COVID ward, where he seemed better, then seemed worse, then seemed better, then seemed worse. Lay him on his side. Lay him on his stomach. Get him out of bed and in a chair. Get him walking. No visitors, not even his wife. But there was Zoom, while he felt well enough; otherwise, he could text. Keep the conversations upbeat and about something other than his illness. He could still improve. It will just take time.

Early on we did text each other. He was too short of breath to talk. We joked about his illness, how over the top it was just to interrupt the COVID isolation and boredom. You know me, he said, anything for a laugh. He asked me to read a particular passage from Isaiah. It was a familiar passage often referenced by Christians as fortelling Christ. Why are you thinking about that, I asked. He said it was because of everything that is going on in the world. It has all become so clear, he said. The End of Days, I said. There was no reply, and no replies to my other texts telling him that I loved him. COVID was not letting go.

High-flow oxygen. They tried to wean him off but his lungs cried out for more, and then his fever returned and his breathing worsened and his chest X-ray wasn’t clearing. And his numbers didn’t look good. Bacterial sepsis, they thought. Multiple antibiotics. And then he was moved to the ICU. And would his wife sign a DNR? Intubated and on dialysis, for his kidneys shut down. Sedated and paralyzed, put into a medically induced coma.

Lay him on his side. Lay him on his stomach. Get him out of bed and in a chair. Get him walking. No visitors, not even his wife.

His lungs need to rest. His body needs to rest, they said. He can still recover, they said. They’ve seen worse. It will take time, they said. People recover. They go home.

For two weeks he remained in the ICU, on life support. It was towards daylight that I saw a white stallion. It was majestic, with flowing mane and long feathered hooves. I suppose I was dreaming but I felt awake. The stallion was trotting, then galloping, effortless, as if weightless, moving from the left of my gaze to the right. It made no sound yet the hoofbeats beat loud in my chest. And then it was gone, like Pegasus taking flight, and with it my brother, the youngest of five, my baby brother.