WE REMEMBER
ONE of the many things this pandemic has taken from us is the chance to comfort the grieving. As of Tuesday night, there were 19,645 coronavirus-related deaths in New York state — with NYC alone reporting 19,107 (including probable but officially unconfirmed deaths) — 8,244 fatalities in New Jersey and 2,633 in Connecticut. In time, we’ll be able to hug one another again. For now, all we can do is recall their lives through the eyes of those who’ve known them best: family, friends and colleagues. May their good works live after them, inspiring us all to be our best, most compassionate selves in their honor. Robert C. Samuels, 83, and Karen Brown, 87
Whenever Robert C. Samuels found himself in a special place, like a baseball game or at the beach, he picked up the phone and called his son.
“‘Guess what I’m doing?’ ” he would ask, recalls his son, Charlie.
In April, Charlie received one of those calls for the last time — not long after Samuels had dropped off his longtime partner, Karen Brown, at a New Jersey hospital where she tested positive for COVID-19.
The night he called, however, Samuels was at home in his Hudson River-abutting town, nursing a beer and watching “60 Minutes.”
“Part of me was like, ‘He’s having a great time, possibly for the last time,’ ” Charlie says. “He had that kind of attitude: Let’s just enjoy it while we can and as best we can.”
The next morning, Samuels called again — to say he felt ill himself and had to get to the hospital.
He admitted himself and ultimately moved into Brown’s room. Many COVID-19 patients die alone due to strict visitor bans, holding final conversations with loved ones via FaceTime, but Samuels and Brown got to spend their last days together.
“That is one of the things that I think has helped me recover and grieve gracefully through this,” says Charlie, who is an only child.
Samuels died first, on April 26, while Brown passed on April 29.
The love story of Samuels, an award-winning journalist and author, and Brown, a clinical social worker, dates to the early 1990s. Both divorced, they met through their children, who were friends in junior high school.
In the mid-’80s, Samuels — a quadriplegic paralyzed in his 40s by a rare neurological disorder — hosted a housewarming party in his new wheelchair-friendly home. Brown attended as a guest and met its architect. She raved over its design and commissioned a house for herself to be built right next door. In the early 1990s, the two started dating. In 1994, Brown sold her home and moved into Samuels’.
Before things picked up with Brown, Samuels served in the Air Force. He then became a newspaper reporter, interviewing major figures including Martin Luther King Jr., President Harry S. Truman and Robert F. Kennedy. In 2011, he published “Blue Water, White Water,” about his experiences with paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome.
“My dad taught me that it is way too easy to perceive challenges, discomfort and people telling you can’t do something as stop signs,” says Charlie. “When you overcome them and you look back, they are much smaller than you imagined them to be. To me, thanks to my dad, breaking barriers is what life is all about.”
Meanwhile, Brown, who had stayed at home with her two children after her divorce, went back to school for social work. In 1972, she began working for the Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center, where she later developed daytreatment programs with the Yonkers Board of Education for children with emotional issues.
“She went out and crafted this career that was really meant to help people,” says Tony Brown, one of her two sons. “She’s always had this piece of her that was focused on public service and [the] community . . . I think she’s always been caring.”
Once, he recalls, she brought a child she’d been helping back to her home. He’d had a rough day, and she figured bringing him to a calm place with fresh air and green grass would improve his mood.
“My mom was willing to do whatever it took,” says Tony.
The couple were also both passionate activists in their beloved Rockland County community of 2,600 people. Samuels, a grandfather of two, opened a walkway on Piermont’s namesake pier and was instrumental in banning traffic during some summer Sundays. Brown, who is survived by four grandchildren, was a treasurer for the Piermont Civic Association and lent her green thumb to the village’s community garden.
Samuels and Brown held onto their can-do attitudes. When they were in the hospital, they connected with Charlie via FaceTime.
“I saw them waving to me with their [oxygen] masks on,” he says. “You couldn’t see whether they were smiling, but I remember Karen saying, ‘Hi, Charlie,’ and I remember saying, ‘I love you, Karen.’ ”