Olympia High’s Myers mourns loss of great grandmother
Olympia High senior football player Jalen Myers was part of his great grandmother’s life for only a brief portion her 93 years, but they shared special moments.
Annie Elizabeth Myers, a life-long resident of Erie, Pa., struggled with dementia in her later years, so her 17-year-old greatgrandson loved it when she always recognized him, even though he usually only saw her once a year.
“I always made it important for me to go up and see her every year, and I have family in Erie, Pa.,” Jalen Myers said. “I would see her a lot, actually.”
Their close bond made it harder for him to hear the news Sunday that the woman he called Grandma had died after a 19-day bout with COVID-19. Jalen learned his great grandmother had coronavirus on May 26, a day before his birthday.
It was a gripping couple of days for the Myers family, which had already learned a few days prior to Annie Elizabeth’s diagnosis that her daughter, Loretta, had COVID-19, the condition caused by the coronavirus. Loretta died two days before her mother.
“When I found out my grandma had passed, it hit hard, but I was more prepared and in a good mental state to take the news,” Jalen said. “But when I first found out she was sick … the next few days were really rough for me because it was all I could really think about. She was really all I had left when it came to grandparents.”
Jalen’s family remains concerned about COVID-19, with two others on the Lofton side of the family also testing positive for the virus.
“My cousin just caught it and his mom just caught it,” Jalen said. “It’s getting real bad up there.”
No one knows how Loretta contracted the virus, but it is believed Annie Elizabeth contracted it from her daughter, who was one of her caregivers.
Annie Elizabeth, who was born on March 26, 1927, had five children and was preceded in death by Loretta. He other children are Greg, Thomas, Kathy and Lilly. Her husband, Tom, died a few years ago and was a military veteran. Annie Elizabeth spent her life as a homemaker, raising her children.
Jalen loves the memories he shared with her.
“She pretty much had dementia most of my life, but something that always kept me close to her was that I was one of the very few people that she actually remembered,” Jalen said. “She usually wouldn’t remember her kids, but she remembered me and my dad and I think my brother.
“So it was really special to me. If I didn’t see her for a whole year, when I’d come to her house she would say, ’Oh, that’s Jalen.’ She just made me feel special that she recognized me even through her dementia.”
She loved watching TV game shows and Jalen enjoyed watching her get into her programs. She like “Family Feud” and “The Price is Right.”
“We’d sit in the living room and watch Family Feud. … She was just a funny person and she would always try to answer the questions and be completely off,” Jalen said with a laugh. “I always thought that was hilarious because she was always so confident in her answers and then just be way off.”
She was always making whether she meant to or not.
“So she had dementia, and the funniest thing she ever did happened when I was downstairs in the basement and I heard my dad yelling,” Jalen said. “So I went upstairs in the kitchen and asked her what was going on. She said, ‘Oh, I threw away the food because it was frozen.’ And I asked her, ‘Where was the food?’ and she said it was in
Jalen
laugh, the freezer.’
“I always thought that was funny because I was like, ‘Grandma, it’s supposed to be frozen. That’s the point of the freezer.’ She had thrown out like at least $100 worth of food out of the freezer.”
Jalen’s father Gary Myers, who lives in Erie, also was a caregiver for his grandmother.
“It hit me and him hard because we were really the closest to her,” Jalen said. “He was taking care of her, too. We haven’t spoken too much during all of this because me and him grieve the same way. We just like to be alone.”
Jalen said it gave him a whole new perspective on the coronavirus, with the pandemic hitting his family.
He said he now makes sure to let his friends and teammates know that suggested precautions to take against contracting the virus are to be taken serious.
“The only thing I’ve done differently is to educate people and tell them, ‘This is for real,’ ” Jalen said. “People close to me here, I tell them to be careful and make sure they don’t come into contact with a lot of people at once because that is a surefire way to get the virus.”
And the fact that it has affected so many family members is difficult for Jalen to fathom.
“It was so shocking. My train of thought was that there are so many people in the world that I doubted it was going to affect me or hit close to home for me,” Jalen said. “And then I found out that my grandma I was close with and had a special relationship with had COVID, it just hit me hard.
“It was like a really aggressive reality check, like this is real. It’s not a joke.”