South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Beyond the virus statistics
As the US death toll crawls closer to 1 million, it’s difficult to count what’s been lost. For many, it’s impossible. The void lasts forever.
By Adam Geller,
Carla K. Johnson and Heather Hollingsworth haircuts, and admonishing young customers to stay out of trouble.
At home, he doted on wife, ShiVanda, his sweetheart since high school. The couple ran a business together, renting bouncy houses and popcorn carts for parties. But their partnership was much more. After ShiVanda had a kidney transplant, he turned their trips to Atlanta for continued care into mini-vacations, taking her to Braves games and out for dinner.
“He called me his queen,” she says.
In late September, as Peebles lay in the hospital, the U.S. toll topped 675,000, surpassing the number of Americans killed by the Spanish flu pandemic a century ago.
He died the following day.
Omicron
The doctors and nurses were fighting for their lives.
And so, at 7 every evening through the spring of 2020, Larry Mass and Arnie Kantrowitz threw open the windows to thank them, joining New York’s symphony of pan banging, air horns and raucous cheers.
Mass, a psychiatrist, felt reassured by the city’s energy.
But he worried about his partner, whose immune system was weakened by anti-rejection drugs required after a kidney transplant.
For months, Kantrowitz, a retired professor and noted gay rights activist, took refuge on their couch, watching favorite Bette Davis movies with Mass by his side.
Kantrowitz, cinnamonbearded as a young man, had long identified with the iconic red-headed actress. “Getting old ain’t for sissies,” she’s widely credited with saying.
Even as Kantrowitz grew older and frailer, he held on to his admiration for her spunk.
It helped sustain the 81-year-old through most of last year. But that and a booster shot were not enough when the omicron variant swept the city in December.
Kantrowitz died of complications from COVID19 on Jan. 21, as the toll moved nearer to 1 million.
On days when news headlines leave Mass feeling angry about the world, he reaches out to his missing partner.
What would Kantrowitz say if he were here? Words of calm and conscience were always one of his special gifts.
“He’s still with me,” Mass says. “He’s there in my heart.”