CREOLE FOR THE SOUL
Creole For The Soul
My father became sick with an autoimmune condition last April, 2020 in the first wave of the pandemic hitting our Black community in the MidWest. As the ambulance drivers took him away, little did I know that would be the last time I would see him as his Caregiver/daughter for over a month. Later that afternoon in calling the hospital I found I was refused visitation. Everyone was refused visitation due to raging Covid-19 hospitalizations in our community. I was stunned. Me, a retired medical social worker has always been at my father's side for the last 15 years.
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As time went on, I didn't hear from a doctor for 12 days, nurse contact was sporadic. I heard from a nurse that my father had contracted Covid-19 at the hospital 3 days after he went in. I badgered, cajoled the hospital social worker to see him to no avail. My father was too weak to handle a phone, but I did have 1 conversation after 15 days. He was despondent worried about me and why I wasn't there. I had to tell him about the hospital's no visitation policy. No one had told him! He was relieved I was okay. All I could do was cry.
Dad got placed in a nursing home briefly that had a Covid-19 unit to help with patients who were too weak to go home. (No visitation of course). Then back to the hospital again to go into hospice. I got a call after a week in hospice that they were planning to move my father back to the nursing home because he hadn't died. The nurse persuaded me to come in as visitation was available because the unit had extra PPE's for family to wear. My boyfriend and I grabbed the chance. We spent 1 1/2 hour with Dad, talking, saying prayers. My father upon hearing my boyfriend's voice, in a slightly morphine drugged stupor looked at me then him, and spoke for the first time in 2 weeks. It was garbled, but it seemed important to him. After about a minute, my father relaxed and slept. He died the next day.
The city lost his body for 3 torturous weeks later. I thought I would lose my mind. Thankfully my boyfriend and friends kept me from being a stark raving lunatic then. Once I got his body identified and cremated (funeral homes were Leary if Covid 19 victims and way overcrowded then) I relaxed. The owner of the city facility noticed my French last name - being Creole. He was from Louisiana and missed good gumbo recipes. I offered to text him a couple of family recipes. Delighted, he put 3 people to work to find Dad's body. It worked! I think my father, a master gumbo maker, who have chuckled over the Where's Waldo search for his body - and that gumbo recipes got him found!
I miss his dry, sardonic humor and smile. The guilt over not bring able to visit him during his hospitalization haunts me a year later. My art got me through all of this - drawing everyday my feelings of loss that I could not express to my father.
Author and writer name :- priyanshu
Chicago
Priyanshu
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