Grief, fear after virus death
Members of a local family are in quarantine after a father died from COVID-19.
Teresa Singerr-Cronnon didn’t know really know her father for the entirety of her live, but she finally reconnected and formed a positive relationship with him last summer, only to be forced to say her goodbyes on a video call as he lay dying in a hospital bed from complications related to COVID-19 earlier this week.
Now she and several members of her family are self-quarantining because they had interacted with Howard Partion, 77, between the time he was released from the Calhoun Health Care Center and the time he was admitted to AdventHealth Gordon. Partion died Tuesday, but his positive test results weren’t returned until Thursday.
Singerr-Cronnon said she’s not only afraid for her own life, but those of her siblings and the grandchildren in the family that all spent time with “Pop.”
“I’m frightened beyond all levels of consciousness,” Singerr-Cronnon said
Thursday. “I am so scared I going to give my family COVID. I’ve seen over five days that this is something that will change our lives.”
Partion had spent several weeks at Calhoun Health Care for a rehab assignment. He was released last Friday, April 17, but on Saturday started showing signs of illness, such as disorientation, congestion and irritability. Without a fever, though, his family didn’t expected that he was suffering from the coronavirus, so Singerr-Cronnon picked him up and drove him to AdventHealth Gordon.
“Pop was doing pretty well. We were looking at this like something he’s going to recover from,” said Singerr-Cronnon.
She said the staff at the hospital immediately began treating Partion as if he were a COVID-19 patient before the test was even confirmed. He was put into a room and treated as best they could by staff covered in personal protection equipment. By Monday he was vomiting blood. He had previously completed a do not resuscitate order, so he was never put on a ventilator.
When the end was near, a nurse arranged an online video call between Partion and about 15 members of his family. He couldn’t speak at that point, with the virus having ravaged his respiratory system, but the family and the nurse all prayed together.
God’s forgiveness
By most accounts, Partion was a bonafide hellraiser in his younger days. He wasn’t around much when SingerrCronnon was growing up, and she learned much of what she knew about him back then from newspaper articles detailing his arrests, including once when he was caught with more than $100,000 worth of marijuana in Cartersville, or his letters from lockup.
He robbed stores, stole cars, picked fights and eventually wound up in prison. Legend had it he was officially banned for life from Gordon County after escaping prison work detail twice.
Things changed about 30 years ago when he met Margaret, the love of his life. Margaret, who was a God fearing lady, passed away last year, but she inspired Partion to turn his life around about 20 years ago.
“Margaret would always lay out her church clothes on Saturday night, and she would always lay out clothes for Pop too,” Singerr-Cronnon said. “And finally, Pop said, ‘One day I just realized I needed to put them on.’”
He became a regular in the church pews after that. He finally got a driver’s license at age 60, after having spent his youth breaking the law on the road without one. His later years were more peaceful than the early ones.
He had put aside his addictions, except for cigarettes and Folgers instant coffee, and he had an affinity for green apple Gatorade, strawberry Fig Newtons, pimento cheese and Captain D’s fish.
Most of all, he was proud of his family.
“The past nine months I have been blessed to spend with him, it is only because of God’s amazing forgiveness given to me on my 13th birthday when he saved me that I could give pop forgiveness for all the things that I felt had been stolen or lost because he had never been involved in my life,” SingerrCronnon wrote in a Facebook post after her father’s death.
Now she and her family mourn, even as they worry about their own well-being.
Awaiting test results
Singerr-Cronnon has isolated herself in the lower floor of her home, ordering her husband to stay upstairs and behind closed doors. She and other members of her family have been tested for the virus, but they don’t know yet whether they have contracted it or spread it to others.
“I would tell you I would never
have believed that I would even know someone with COVID-19,” she said. “We’re in Calhoun. This is a small, safe town, right? But I watched my father suffer for five days. It’s scary. I am worried that I won’t be around for my family or that I have exposed my family. “
Singerr-Cronnon praised the personnel at both Calhoun Health Care and AdventHealth Gordon. She said the staff at both facilities treated her father and her family kindly and with respect and that they went above and beyond their responsibilities to help.
While Partion was at Calhoun Health Care, the family visited him outside of his room’s window as a precaution. When he was released, no one worried that he might have been carrying the virus.
After being admitted to AdventHealth Gordon, members of family were notified they needed to be tested and need to self quarantine until the results were returned.
Now everyone is waiting, which hasn’t been easy.
“The doctor was trying to encourage me because I’m flat scared that I’m going to die,” said Singerr-Cronnon.
To make matters worse, the family can’t conduct a funeral
because of the pandemic. They have, however, made plans to have a get together in his honor once all this passes.
Singerr-Cronnon spared little detail in her Facebook post about her father and their history. She said her family has grown because she decided to reconcile with her family, and she thanked God for the time they had together.
“I have come to realize that we can’t be everything to everyone. Everybody needs somebody to love, and Pop found a family to love and they love him! I have met sisters I had no idea they existed! All because of forgiveness!” she wrote. “I’m not saying run out and reconcile with everyone, although that’s not a bad thing if they’re making good choices, but what I am saying is that we have to forgive because to get into heaven to be forgiven we have to forgive on this Earth. It doesn’t mean we forget and now the rest of it is between you and your God. I pray that this transparency will change your life and God open doors and changes hearts that one would never have believed that it could happen.”
To see a complete obit for Partion, visit the Shawn Chapman Funeral Home website.