My Experience

Well Covid-19 is all people talk about these days. This annoying virus causes so many consequences. I am going to share my personal experience with this virus. On Mother's Day, May 10, 2020, my grandmother died. I come from a Hispanic background and we usually don't celebrate American Mother’s Day, but we celebrate Dominican Mother’s Day which is on May 31. But that all changed for me and my family, especially my mom. My grandmother passed away on Mother's Day May 10, 2020. She died from natural causes and not Covid-19. She suffered from Type 2 Diabetes and emphysema.

My mom got the call at 3pm, from my aunt, saying that my grandmother was not feeling well and might not make it. My mother rushed to get ready to go to Manhattan to be with her. My aunt knew on Saturday night that my grandmother wouldn't make it because she was acting weird. She started calling out to all her dead relatives as if she really saw them standing around her. She spent time apologizing to family members and hallucinating. When my mom got there it was too late. My grandmother had already perished. My mom called to tell me the news. She said that my sisters and I should come to my grandmother’s house to say our last goodbye. I got dressed and got picked up by my sister, who was driving. When we got there, all my family members were all there.

I entered the room where my grandmother's dead body just lay there... I never liked funerals because my nervous system starts to hit me and I begin to laugh. In this case I just stayed quiet and didn't make a sound. I just watched my aunts crying and I hugged my mom to comfort her since she was crying as well. My cousin, who got there before us she called multiple funeral homes and they were all either booked or closed due to Covid-19: all of them had too many bodies to handle. Finally, one of the five funeral homes she called returned her call. They told her it was going to take at least half an hour or longer to get there because of the heavy demand due to the Covid crises. We waited and waited until 7:30pm when they finally arrived. It took them at least three hours to get the body, even the police, who she called earlier, took hours before they made their report. In fact the officer waited outside in his car until after the funeral home got there.

I was outside with my sister when we saw the car pull up and park in front of my grandmother’s apartment building. My younger sister went in to let them know that they were there. The two people from the funeral home went in with stretchers and a dark navy blue blanket. I just stayed outside as I watched her body being taken away and the cop behind them- like a crime scene on TV. But this was real. They were gone just like that. I didn’t know where she was being taken.

Everything was over now and everyone left to go home. The next day, my aunt called my mom and told her that the funeral home said that my grandmother was undergoing an autopsy to determine if she died from natural causes or from Covid-19. If she died from Covid-19 her body would have to be cremated or immediately buried without being released to the family. Also, it was going to take a week or more to send the body to any country of origin.

This all sounded outrageous. The following week, the funeral home called my aunt to tell her that the body was being released. They confirmed that she died from natural causes and that she would be ready to be shipped to the Dominican Republic. That was good news, but the bad news was getting to the Dominican Republic. All flights were canceled and the government over there shut down the airport. Luckily, our family was able to get my grandmother to the Dominican Republic and get her buried.

This has been a crazy week for me. I had to juggle school five days a week, and help take care of my mom since she suffers from high blood pressure. In conclusion, Covid-19 has been problematic for people even if they do not have Covid but have another medical or life-ending incident. It is problematic for family members of those who die, whether or not it was due to Covid because they can’t properly mourn and share their grief. Even though the virus has got us to appreciate family time together we have to be prepared because we never know the time or the hour for us to go.