What will happen to boy whose mom died of COVID-19?
For the Fryson brothers, the year had begun on a hopeful note. They had finally reunited with their mother, Beatrice McMillian, after years of being in foster care.
McMillian had secured rental assistance for an apartment so she could move out of a homeless shelter. The older brother, Kasaun, was embarking on adulthood, working at Whole Foods and attending community college.
The younger brother, EJ, was living with his mother and doing well in high school. Then, in April, McMillian died of COVID-19. Her death shattered everything the family had gained. Fryson, 22, headed to court to try to become his 16-year-old brother’s guardian and keep him from returning to foster care. “He needs someone, and I’m going to be that person,” Fryson said.
When the coronavirus pandemic killed thousands of people in New York City, it made orphans of an unknown number of children. At least eight children have been placed in foster care because their parents died from the virus, according to the city Administration for Children’s Services.
The total number is likely higher. Children in families with more money or wider support systems usually handle guardianship issues privately.
The sudden loss has thrust some young adults like Fryson into the unexpected role of surrogate parent, fighting to keep what is left of their families together.
“Your physical home is gone, your emotional home is gone. Then, you’re going to be put with someone you’ve never known in your life,” said Karen J. Freedman, the founder and executive director of Lawyers for Children, which represents children in foster care, including some whose parents died in the pandemic. “That is a terrifying process for any child.”
Fryson was determined to prevent his brother, EJ, from having to return to foster care.
The brothers went into the care of the state in
2013, after their father died of prostate cancer. Their mother, McMillian, was in prison, serving a sentence for manslaughter.
But McMillian, who killed her boyfriend in a domestic dispute in 2009, was a fierce protector from prison, Fryson said. She monitored the welfare of her sons in phone calls to foster parents and agencies. She pushed to get her sons moved into a more suitable home when they told her they were having problems with one foster mother, Fryson said.
Her sons visited her at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, and went to a nearby sleep-away camp during the summer so they could spend more time with her.
When Fryson learned his mother had coronavirus and would be hospitalized, he immediately went to the homeless shelter where his family was staying in Kips Bay and got his brother. Doctors ordered them to quarantine for two weeks in his apartment on the Lower East Side, so they were unable to visit their mother before she died in the hospital.
The funeral was a blur, Fryson said. “It wasn’t really much of a funeral. You can’t see the person. They won’t let you see the body. You just stand at the box for 10 minutes,” he said.
He reached out to Lawyers for Children, which had represented them in the past. The group referred him to a private lawyer, Philip Katz, who said a judge recently awarded Fryson custody, although there are still complications.
Fryson cannot have overnight visitors for long stays at the supportive housing building where he lives, so EJ sometimes has to bunk with relatives. Fryson has applied to move into a larger apartment in the building so the brothers can live together full time.
Fryson said his mother would have wanted them to stay together. “She was a good mom,” he said.