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This is my story. It is not invented, it is not copied.
It is the chronicle of what I have experienced in the last few days and I feel the need to share it so that people have more testimony about what happens to those who have the misfortune to meet the Covid19, personally or because it has affected a person in the family, a friend, an acquaintance.
My father was 86 years old.
Brilliant conversation, a thousand interests, he drove the car, he was totally independent and healthy .
We called and saw each other every day, he passed by our home to greet and have an aperitif or a coffee.
He had no problem other than choosing the restaurant when he decided it was time to go out for lunch.
He liked oysters a lot, Escargot à la Bourguignonne, good food, a good cocktail and a glass of good wine.
He liked the joy of being in company, the sea, the trips.
He was 86 years old, he showed at least ten years younger but he was in the target.
I repeated to him to the exhaustion of staying at home, because he was at risk, because if he had taken the Virus and it was necessary to hospitalize him in the Hospital he would have been alone, because none of us could have gone to visit him, because many of his age they don't get by.
March 10 was the last day he passed by our home.
He was fine.
It was difficult but as a precaution we didn't hug or even kiss.
It was the last day he saw his family before going to his partner home .
I carried the groceries, put it in front of the door, walked away and said goodbye at a safe distance.
For two days they had had a boring little fever, nothing special. It seemed they were fine. They told me they had contacted the doctor
On March 23rd we hospitalized him.
He grumbled when they told him that they would take him down with the chair, greeted me sitting on the stretcher, lively and terrified.
I yelled at him "Dad! Hold your phone and charger tight because it's the only way we can communicate! "
The only way. There were no others. No visits. The hospital is armored.
We called for two or three days, when he only had a light mask. We called, he called. He was fed up. They didn't let him get out of bed and instead he wanted to put his things in the closet. He hated disorder.
The first swab was negative but they would repeat it.
Then they had to put on the C-pap because the saturation was low. It is noisy, thick and talking is difficult. He got angry because we couldn't understand what he was saying and then we told him to listen, to say only yes or no. I tried to stay on the phone for as long as possible, I asked him how he was, I told him what I was doing, who he called to get his news, I talked about the time of what we would do when he would go out, I also invented, yes, I invented because I knew that for him it was important to hear my voice, the voice of his beloved nephew, that of his son-in-law and his partner.
He needed it to go on it was a kind of nourishment.
Then she never answered or called me again.
I asked the Doctors, who kept me constantly informed about his condition, to leave him the phone, to tell him that I knew he could not answer but that I would call him the same. A few rings during the day, to let him know that we thought it, that we were close to him.
On March 31st a doctor told me that the clinical picture had worsened, he had no problems with breathing because the mask helped him to reach the correct saturation but all the organs were stopping working.
He had given up. What I feared had come true.
April 1 at 8:30 am the phone rang. Dad was gone.
My father had four worries.
No longer being able to drive, lose his independence, become a burden for us and be alone.
The virus is sneaky, so that it only showed up on the second swab, but I think loneliness helped him out.
We could not see it, no preparation of the body (they disinfect and wrap them in a sheet and the funeral attendants equipped with masks with filters, close them in the box), no religious function. Just a quick blessing before the burial in the presence of the closest family members, in our case three, in the Cemetery open especially for us (Even those are closed)
A friend of ours works in that department, my father had known him since we were kids, I asked him to say who he was ( harnessed as they are all look the same), because knowing that was a known person could help him.
He was on duty when Dad left, he told me he didn't suffer and he was calm. I believe him. He knows me and knows that he can tell me the truth. I'm not the type who goes wild.
I absorb the blow and turn the page.
Stay home, keep your distance, wash your hands, use gloves and masks.
My friend said to me, "You have no idea what it's happening here. You can't even imagine it. " It is devastating for them too.
No, I can't imagine it but I can feel it. From his voice, from the voice of the doctors and other people who work there, from the looks of the people who stand at a safe distance outside and in the hall.
I went to the hospital three times.
Once to pick up personal belongings.
One to bring spare linen.
One to pick up the phone, which is on the balcony in three plastic bags waiting for the sim to lock.
All three times I threw everything I was wearing in the washing machine along with a good dose of disinfectant.
They called me to collect the linen. "Throw it all away."
Life gives, life takes.
We are fine, his partner is fine. We are tried but we'll rise.
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