It had only been four months since Ramón Ramirez buried his wife and is now there, hospitalized with COVID-19, the grim diagnosis and fate of his youngest children devoured him before completing his last video call with his eldest, a 29-year-old single mother and mother of two, had one last request: “Take care of your brothers. “
Before long, he joined the role of the pandemic dead, and his daughter, Marlene Torres, in the face of the overwhelming task of fulfilling her promise. Overnight, his space exploded, with his four brothers, elders from 11 to 19 years old, joining his two children, 2 and 8 years old.
The emotional and monetary demands are so overwhelming that Torres unearths by pleading with heaven, “Please,” he pleaded with his parents. Guide me. “
As america approaches the mark of 200,000 pandemic deaths, the pain repeats itself: a child from Ohio, too young for his own words, who kisses a photo of his deceased mother. In the middle of a satisfied birthday full of balloons, now in treatment after the loss of his father. Three Michigan brothers who lost any of their parents, pushing the 21-year-old boy to assume the role of father of his sisters.
With 8 out of ten Americans suffering from the virus age 65 and older, it’s easy to see other young people who have gotten rid of their anger, but among the dead there are countless parents who have left behind young people who make up some other type of victim.
Micah Terry, 11, of Clinton Township, Michigan, doesn’t see his father in his karate classes, stops at his father’s, sneaks into bird nuggets with him at the movies. In the saddest moments, he talks about him all day, but his brother, Joshua, 16, is silent when the pain strikes him, channeling his emotions through the piano, which he learned to play from his father.
“My father, my most productive friend,” says Joshua about Marshall Terry III, who died in April. “My purpose is to make him proud as he looks from heaven. “
In King, New Jersey, Graeme, Pamela Addison’s 10-month-old son, is animated and doesn’t seem to realize that his father is missing, but it’s something else for his daughter, Elsie. day as his birthday in March, when Dad bought balloons and the virus seemed like a remote threat.
Martin Addison died a month later at the age of 44; today, Elsie, at 2, is in mourning to take care of everything.
“She’s having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he won’t come home,” Addison says.
Zavion, 4, and Jazzmyn, 2, were welcomed through their siblings after the death of their mother, Lunisol Guzman, 50, from Newark, New Jersey, who followed them in their 40s. The eldest of his other three children, Katherine and Jennifer Guzman. , temporarily to seek guardianship.
“These young people are our family,” Katherine said, “To us, it’s a no-brainer. “
She says Zavion and Jazzmyn are often resilient, but utter the same undeniable and heartbreaking phrase: “I miss Mom. “
No authorized counts of parents of minors lost to coronavirus have been counted, but it is certain that they are counted by thousands in the United States. Some young women are now entering the homes of grandparents like Anadelia Díaz, adding the 29-year-old. daughter, a single mother of three, who died of COVID-19.
“I don’t call it a burden,” says Diaz, from Lake Worth, Florida. “It’s unconditional love. “
Her 15-year-old grandson has lived with her for a long time, but Diaz feels like a new mom again, suffering from running after two young children, an 18-month-old, a year older, in a backyard now dotted with a swing and a children’s pool. .
She and her husband dreamed of a vacation in Alaska; now you have to avoid running like a housekeeper and even a stop at the grocery store is an ordeal. Young children used to share a room with their mother and, seeking not to interrupt their routine anymore, Diaz now sleeps in his studio with them. where they wake up every morning with a giant picture of their mom on the wall.
Losing a woman was like wasting a component of herself. It’s your daughter’s reminiscence that drives Diaz forward. She turned 56 the day she buried Samantha, and prayed to see the youth in adulthood.
“All I ask of God is our strength, that’s all,” he says.
Intervening for those who have died can be dubious ground.
After Ramath Mzpeh Warith and Sierra Warith married and had their first child, Ramath Jr. , they opted for a work department: Mom would focus on the categories to become a visual assistant and take full care of childcare responsibilities. because of as a driving force of the Cleveland bus for them.
However, while waiting for his bathing moment, either parent tested positive for coronavirus and, while Ramath was asymptomatic, Sierra became sicker. After his hospitalization, a boy named Zephiniah was born by C-section on May 14.
Sierra would never be enough to stop him. He died the day before his 24th birthday.
Suddenly, she is in mourning for the love of her life and learning to take on all the things she trusted her for. He took paternity categories in the hospital and his mother moved upstairs so he could help him. Her 20-month-old son, Junior, kisses in a photo of her mother and cries because they no longer feed her to sleep or snuggle up next to her in her bed.
Warith, 38, knows that one day he will have to sit with his children and tell them about his mother, but for now, he takes it day after day, seeking to be the most productive father he can be in a changed life.
“They want a father,” he says. They still want to be hugged, hugged and loved. “
It’s not about thinking about how things were going before the pandemic losses.
For Nashwan Ayram of Sterling Heights, Michigan, it was a life of wakefulness and sleep until noon, and in the evenings enjoying his mother’s cakes. He was accustomed to being pampered by his parents, accustomed to carefree projects such as a summer backpack to Europe, accustomed to a life with few responsibilities.
“I used to wake up with the whole fuel tank in my Camaro,” he says, “without worrying about anything. “
In the past, any of the parents of the 21-year-old died of the virus and he kept an eye on two sisters with which he had never felt close, that is, teaches him to drive Nadeen, 18, and helps his 13-year-old son. Nanssy at school, while dealing with daily responsibilities such as buying groceries and cleaning up a mountain of documents to manage the affairs of his parents and a legal guardian.
He rages with his parents for having died and stolen his carefree life. He also calls them heroes for being so brave to leave their local Iraq and build a new life with Ettas-Unis. So, he says, wasting them at once, could have been less difficult than wasting one: now you know, life can never be worse.
Ayram wishes he could return to a carefree life of birthday partying and freedom, but he knows what he wants to do to make his parents proud.
“That’s all I can do,” he says. Honestly, I’m the one who ruins things with my sisters. “
———
You can contact Sedensky at msedensky@ap. org and https://twitter. com/sedensky.
24/7 policy of the latest news and events