She spent days trying to breathe, increasingly desperate for air as her lungs filled with coronavirus goo. Doctors put her first on oxygen, then a machine that people with sleep apnea more commonly use, then finally on a ventilator.
She spent more than a week in the hospital without visitors, except — one hopes — the affection and gentle touch of the doctors and nurses who tried hard to heal her. In the last days of her life, when a ventilator did her breathing, she was mercifully unconscious so she wouldn’t try to pull the tube out.
On Aug. 6, Bartola died.
She was my husband’s younger sister — and one of the most caring, loving people that it’s been my privilege to know and love.
Her family’s pondering all the questions you’d expect as they weep their way through this profoundly premature loss of a woman in her 50s who was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a really, really good friend.
COVID-19 has also complicated the questions surrounding a memorial. Honor her now or wait until spring and hope the risk will be substantially lower then? Her mother is in her late 80s, some of her siblings have risk factors and her son and his wife are still recovering from the after-effects of the virus, which they got as well.
It’s a personal tragedy that each one will work through differently. But it adds immensely to the pain when people talk about the virus like it’s either no big deal or it’s a political grenade they can use to try to blow each other up.
I never knew Bartola’s politics or if she cared about politics at all. It wasn’t part of our relationship. What I know is that the last time my husband and I stayed with one of his brothers in Arizona back in January just before life became bizarre due to the pandemic, she stayed there, too, so we would all have more time together. I am especially grateful for that. The family is tight-knit. The siblings who live near each other are good friends who each dote on their mama, but we live far away.
The Bartola I knew could recite the Bible nearly by heart because she’d read it so many times. She was a woman who loved simple things and put all of her trust in God, through good days and the bad ones. She certainly experienced both. I suspect she’s far happier with how things turned out than the rest of us are as we grapple with knowing she’s gone.
I posted about her death on a friend’s page on Facebook and one of his friends — a stranger to me — immediately launched an attack: How do you know it was coronavirus? Those deaths aren’t real.
The deaths are extraordinarily real to those who love someone who didn’t survive this virus — 775,000 so far worldwide and more than 170,000 here in America.
It’s not guesswork, in most cases. Health care providers can confirm whether or not someone has COVID-19 with a test, processed through a reputable lab. Some early cases might have been called “probably” coronavirus, but that’s far less likely now.
We’ve been scrupulously careful because my husband had a transplant and is immunosuppressed. We will continue to be careful. Bartola’s family was careful, too. Still, life couldn’t stop; some of them had to work and shop. Somewhere, they were infected. We worried about her high-risk mother, but weren’t particularly scared for Bartola until she got sick.
I’ve learned a lot about the disease, having covered it extensively for several months.
But here’s the heart lesson: COVID-19 absolutely doesn’t care about your politics or your wealth or whatever else you can name. It’s a mindless machine that in a body replicates itself so it can sicken others. Some people face higher risk of complications, but no one has guaranteed protection. You can’t know for sure how hard it will hit you unless it hits you. You hope it’s mild.
It isn’t always.
Bartola died. And those of us who loved her are in pain.