What happens after someone dies from COVID?

My grandfather was diagnosed with pneumonia on Thursday, April 9. On Friday, he tested positive for COVID-19. He died on Saturday. He would have turned 90 on April 12, which was also Easter Sunday.

No one in my family had seen my grandfather during the last month of his life. He was a resident of The Willows, a Genesis HealthCare nursing home facility on Amity Road in Woodbridge. In March, staff members told my family that we could not visit Nate while the COVID-19 pandemic was happening and while the world was under quarantine. A recent report said that nearly 60 percent of all the state’s coronavirus deaths have happened in nursing homes.

After my family members were contacted about Nate having pneumonia and then later coronavirus, The Willows staff transferred my grandfather to Yale New Haven Hospital. The medical staff there did not expect him to live through the night. He died around 5:30 p.m. the next day. From the hospital, he was then transported to a funeral home, where his body was cremated. Several days later, the ashes arrived by mail to my aunt’s residence. The next time I saw Nate was on a Zoom call. He was in an urn.

Because my grandfather was a COVID-19 patient, we could not be by his bedside when he died, or view his body, or have a proper funeral. Because we’ve been ordered to socially distance ourselves, my family has not been able to get together to grieve. We haven’t been able to share a meal together, or cry together in person, or console each other with hugs. We haven’t been able to wipe away each other’s tears.

I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my grandfather. I’m more sad that he died alone. I wonder if he knew he was dying. I hope he didn’t think that we forgot about him. I wish he knew that the day he was diagnosed with pneumonia, my cousin slept in his car in the parking lot outside of the nursing home. He wanted to be close to Nate, but that’s as close as the staff would allow him to be. I hope he felt some sense of relief when my aunt FaceTimed him just a few hours before he took his last breath.

I feel bad for the other patients at nursing homes throughout the country. It’s like they’re trapped in snow globes and coronavirus germs are the particles floating inside of the glass. I hope the person or people who brought the virus into my grandfather’s nursing home know they are infected, have received necessary treatment and have started practicing social distancing.

I called Nate’s nursing home recently. I told the receptionist about Nate. I told her that he lived there and got sick. I told her I would be writing a column about it, and I wanted to know what I should tell any readers about the precautions they should take to ensure the health and safety of their loved ones who also reside in nursing homes.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no one here that can talk to you,” the receptionist said. “Our staff is really busy.”

I repeated my story to the receptionist ... this time with a little more drama in my voice.

“Let me see if there’s anyone who can talk to you,” she said while she placed me on hold.

In the few seconds that my call was being transferred, I imagined myself in that nursing home, walking down the long hall to the elevators and taking it up to the second floor, where Nate’s room was before he died. I pictured myself walking in his room, seeing him sitting in his wheelchair with his back facing the door wearing a red long-sleeved shirt and a baseball cap. I pictured him turning around and saying to me,” Hey, what are you doing here?”

Then I pictured his room empty — a bare hospital bed with no sheets, just a blue plastic-looking mattress showing. I saw an empty wall, where a collage of old pictures of my family members once hung. I envisioned his closet empty, and the top of his dresser, too, where his television and another framed picture of our family sat. I remembered the night it was taken at The Elks Club, where Nate was once a bar manager.

“Hello?” A social worker picked up the phone and interrupted my thoughts. She introduced herself. I gave the same spiel to her that I gave to the receptionist.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I really can’t talk to you about that,” she said before hanging up.

Neither she nor the receptionist offered their condolences. And that was that.