Mourning amid pandemic can create cruel paradox
Today’s column is the third in a series on grieving the death of a loved one during a pandemic as customary traditions get profoundly - and unnaturally - affected by new social restrictions.
Through a nursing facility window, Ron Smith told his wife of 43 years, “Happy birthday, I love you.” He died peacefully four days later, though alone in his room.
“I was allowed to come and sit with him for a while before the funeral home came,” recalled his wife, Judi Smith, of Antioch, Illinois.
This is the cruel paradox of grieving amid a public health epidemic. After weeks or months of not being allowed to spend time with a loved one when they’re alive – and often scared, lonely or confused – mourners are granted physical closeness and hopeful closure only after their death.
Ronald William Smith died April 20. He was 82.
“Mourning in the time of a pandemic is difficult,” Smith told me. “After five months, it is only a slight bit easier. I still feel guilty knowing that the love of my life was probably confused as to why I wasn’t with him.”
For nine months, her husband lived in a nursing facility in Round Lake Beach, ushered there by dementia and advanced Parkinson’s disease. She visited him every day for several hours.
After the pandemic’s social distance restrictions were ordered, she visited him through the emotional pain of a window pane.
His obituary states, “Ron was known as ‘Tie Dude,’ and had a large collection of colorful ties. He wore a different one every Sunday, even after moving into nursing care.”
Once upon a time, he enjoyed the history of World War II and the Civil War, stockpiling an arsenal of library of books and videos. He also enjoyed golf, bowling, watching the Cubs, trips to Wisconsin, and traveling to Denmark to search for his ancestry.
He loved celebrating what he considered his Viking heritage. Instead of recognizing Columbus Day, he celebrated Leif Erikson Day by flying his Danish flag and proudly proclaiming to anyone who would listen, “Leif landed first!”
Such gusto for life too often gets forgotten when people die in old age, long after their zest for living fades into the realities of dying.
Ron Smith’s favorite quote came from the 1958 movie he watched many times, “Auntie Mame”: “Life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
He was born and raised in Waukegan, serving in the Illinois National Guard for 10 years and working at Abbott Labs for 35 years.
He battled Parkinson’s for nearly 20 years. Near the end, his body was cruelly attacked by Lewy Body Dementia, a progressive disease that shows no mercy regardless of political views, earned income or social status.
“It’s the same illness that affected Robin Williams,” his wife said.
After Smith’s death, his daughter was unable to travel to Illinois from her Texas home to help with arrangements.
“All the funeral and planning had to be done by myself,” Judi Smith said. “We couldn’t even have a memorial service. Our church was closed.”
As I’ve written in my first two columns in this series, pandemicrelated social constraints, mandated quarantines and public health precautions have punched us in the gut at a deeply emotional level. Its lingering anguish will stay with many mourners until their own deaths.
“I feel sad for all the sweet residents of nursing facilities and their families because these residents are so isolated, just at a time when they need the most love,” Smith said.
In August 2019, she surprised her husband at the nursing facility by showing up on their 43rd wedding anniversary wearing her wedding dress.
“This time, I proposed,” she said. “He accepted.”
Sept. 11 would have been her husband’s 83rd birthday. Through Facebook, she invited their friends and family to join her in celebrating his birthday and his life. She baked his favorite cake and chocolate chip cookies, which she shared with close friends and her closest memories of him.
Loved ones sent her memorial messages through social media, which has become the norm in these days of social distancing.
“Some of them sent pictures toasting Ron with a favorite beverage, and I even received a package with two small pieces of birthday cake,” Smith said. “The pastor of our church shared the prayer he would have prayed had we been able to have a memorial service.”
Last Sunday, the couple’s church, Millburn Congregational UCC, hosted an outdoor service. The organist played “A Closer Walk with Thee.” Smith looked up to the heavens and noticed three forms of “fly-by” salute to her late husband – a Monarch butterfly, an American eagle and a passing biplane (Ron Smith flew a Stearman biplane years ago, she said).
“I’m sure Ron is trying out heaven’s golf courses and bowling alleys, able to walk confidently again,” Smith said.
The couple strolled through a few of their later years while living in the Texas Panhandle until blown back to the Midwest by the hot dry winds of homesickness.
“Ron wanted to come home to Illinois,” said Smith, a former newspaper columnist in the Lone Star state.
Her column, Bouncing Around, was mostly light-hearted and travelspirited. She’s now bouncing around without the love of her life in the passenger seat.
“Tears come at unexpected times, but laughter and sharing of memories strike a bit of a balance,” she said. “What’s difficult now is having to reinvent myself as I approach 75 years old, or as I like to say, 35 with 40 years’ experience.”
Smith echoes the mourning of many others as they grieve during a pandemic. “I am slowly finding peace,” she said.