“I GRIEVED FOR MY DAD THROUGH A WINDOW”

Marty Cofie, a personal trainer from London, lost her dad to COVID in March 2020

My dad had only been ill for 48 hours before he died at home, with my mum by his side.

We know now that it was COVID. The government had just enforced the first lockdown, so I’d given him a kiss a few days earlier. My big, strong, politically fierce Ghanaian dad, who was a grafter and provider. How could the virus take someone so vibrant in such a short space of time? Our new world order meant that I couldn’t hug my mum. All we could do was stand at her window, our hands together but separated by a pane of glass.

Almost a year has passed, and my mum is still incredibly worried about the virus and passing it onto those she loves, but I’ve been able to touch her since we formed a bubble. I felt the weight of her soul in my arms in that first embrace. I couldn’t unclench.

I’ve felt lonely. I’ve isolated myself from friends because I needed to process the trauma. My neighbour occasionally drops round dinner or a bottle of wine. At one point, between lockdowns, my closest friends came over with champagne and we danced in the garden – that they were there was enough.

Losing Dad has broken us. COVID has exacted its price on my family, but since he died, I’ve gone back to the core values he taught me about being a good person. I’m a better mum because of it. Being locked in a house together has given me the space to understand my children beyond the relationship of mother and sons – we’ve become allies. And it’s brought my mum and me closer; we’ve had conversations we wouldn’t otherwise have had. I don’t think I saw her as a woman before – she was always just my mother.

Each morning in the shower, I write “Dad” into the steam. That’s when I think of him. Every day is different: sometimes I wake up feeling positive, at other times there’s a drop in my stomach and I miss him so much it’s painful. I’m a personal trainer, and one thing that’s kept me going is the free Zoom class I teach every day at 9.15am. I started it to help others, but sometimes it’s my only contact with the outside world. My Dad’s ashes are in an urn on his favourite armchair in the living room of our family home. When the world opens up, we’ll take him back to Ghana. But we still haven’t had a funeral. There are too many of us, and in Ghanaian culture, we must all be together – siblings, cousins, everyone in the family. We’ll have a celebration as soon as we can – when there are no limits on numbers. It’s all or nothing, so we choose all.