The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A day about love, family, survival
The search for an open seat on a postcard day turned out to be easier than I’d imagined Wednesday, as throngs of shoppers and diners at outdoor tables never materialized.
That didn’t matter a whit to Michelle Lily Dionne, Dino Dionne and especially their toddler, Sofia. What they celebrated at Mamoun’s Falafel Restaurant in New Haven doesn’t require crowds, and it wasn’t about the luxury of restaurant service.
It was about life. It was about survival. It was about love and family.
The Dionnes left YaleNew Haven Hospital with precious Sofia, 20 months old, who spent much of the last two of those months in hospital beds — with a COVID-19-related illness that hits small children, and with a reaction to a vaccine, they said.
Both parents, and Michelle’s father in Queens, also contracted COVID-19. Dino’s case was so bad he wrote a will, thinking he was near death.
Too hungry to drive all the way home to Stamford, they stopped at Mamoun’s on the way from the hospital to the highway for what turned out to be a festive, sunny meal after a springtime of hell. They had almost lost the person who gave them life, whose life they created.
“She’s been in and out of the hospital for two months,” said Michelle, a singer, songwriter, rapper and recording artist who’s been a coach on “The X Factor” and has performed in sold-out arenas, performing as Michelle Lily.
“She almost died twice,” Dino said, recounting a horrific, spiking, 105.2-degree fever that had them frantically calling an ambulance.
“It’s been the longest two months of our lives,” Michelle added.
As we sat a table apart, the requisite 6 feet of distance on the sidewalk along Howe Street, me with a friend, celebrating a slight return to normalcy, the Dionnes with a tired but happy little girl, they talked about their ordeal. Mother and toddler still wore their hospital wristbands.
They described a dramatic return to normal life that puts in perspective a Grand Reopening Day in Connecticut that was, for most of us, a nice lifestyle adjustment after two months shut in.
They think they contracted the illness during the first week of March in New York, where they lived until they moved to the harbor area of Stamford three years ago.
“We all were sick at the same time,” Michelle said.
“The first six weeks it was life and death,” added Dino, who’s in financial services.
He said he was chattering his teeth so badly that some cuspids and molars broke.
Her father took ill severely, but was unable to get to a hospital. Dino, an Army veteran who served in special operations and was deployed as a peacekeeper during the Yugoslav civil wars in the ‘90s, used guile — pretending he was a dispatcher, calling emergency services in Queens.
He’d had malaria in the Army, and this, he said, was much worse.
She documented the weeks of misery on her Instagram page, which has more than 15,000 followers. On a May 1 photo of Sofia in a hospital bed, eating crackers with wires attached to her arm and leg, Michelle wrote, “For now all I can do is squeeze her tightly and tell her how much I love her and will be here for her forever ... and in the meantime make this beautiful room feel less like the hospital and more like the Ritz! Anything for my princess.”
Michelle’s case wasn’t as bad. I asked whether she was able to sing during the illness. “I actually sang my way back to health,” she said — using muscles that exercised her lungs in a way she’s convinced healed her faster.
Few people traveled up and down Howe Street as we spoke. Miya’s, the House of Naan, the Tandoor and other places all remained closed, or very quiet. Inside Mamoun’s, Ismael Chater, whose family owns the famous eatery, and an employee who just returned on
Monday stood ready for bigger crowds.
My old friend, Shana, made the point that most people are still too stuck — emotionally, socially, financially — to rush back to normal life.
For the Dionnes, the exit from Yale-New Haven, where some nights Dino slept in the car, painted a stark, bright line of life.
They checked on their Jack Russell terrier in the back of their SUV — even their three dogs had been sick in this dark time — then placed Sofia carefully in her toddler seat. The girl screamed and threw her milk cup out to the street.
“She’s scared she’s going back,” Michelle said — back to the hospital, that is.
At last, on the day when Connecticut slowly dug its way back to normal, the Dionnes believe they’re safe.
“It feels amazing,” Michelle said. “I think we all take it for granted.”
“Freedom is priceless,” Dino said.
She repeats those three words, then says she no longer worries about leaving the house without makeup, that kind of thing. “We all forget what the simple things in life are,” she said. “That’s what we’ve learned. Health, love, family, safety.”