An American Dies Every 40 Seconds. Please Stay Safe.
By: Linda Caroll
Tags: Health, Relationships, Loss, Family, Love

Let me tell you what you never forget. You never forget how it feels when you watch them pull the sheet over your mother’s face.

They strap her down and push the gurney out the door, down the hall slowly in measured steps. Towards the elevator. We trail behind, her ducklings, knowing it would be the last time we’d see her.

Tears roll silent down my face. Behind me, my sister keens softly and I am nearly undone. The elevator dings and as the doors open, I run to kiss her one last time, through the sheet. She is so cold and I am so broken.

As we walk through the hospital lobby for the last time, Christmas music plays softly in the background.

Silver bells, silver bells. It’s Christmas time in the city.

We drive half an hour, my child and I, to winter land. Giant snow flakes falling through the glow of Christmas lights on giant pine trees as we crunch through the snow to the haunting strains of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and tears freeze on my eyelashes.

Somehow, it feels like she is there with us. She so loved the holidays. I remember when I was a child and she’d hang tiny silver stars from the ceiling so they’d twinkle and twirl above us.

It’s almost dark when I get home and I see her Christmas stocking, stuffed to the brim with treats Santa-me would have snuck into her apartment and we’d laugh and say I guess she was good this year. I sink to the floor and cry.

I lost my Mom the Christmas before last.

Let me tell you what she loved. Life. Her children. The holiday season. And dancing until 2 am on New Year’s eve. Somehow, it seemed so unfair that she had to leave us mere days before she could enjoy those one more time.

No one wants to lose a loved one, but we do and the worst part is that we never know when the last grains of sand will trickle through the hourglass.

Let me tell you what I read today…

I read that there is a Covid death every 40 seconds in America.

I won’t tell you to wear a mask. You already are. Or aren’t. I won’t tell you to social distance, or stay home if you can, or wash your hands or follow the health guidelines. You already are. Or aren’t.

Nothing I say is going to change that.

I read that if 95% of Americans wore masks, it could save 56,000 lives by April, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. But not everyone believes that.

Nothing I say is going to change that, either.

Belief is a funny thing, isn’t it?

When I was about the age where children start to think maybe Santa isn’t real, Mama asked if I wrote a letter to Santa. I shook my head no. I’m too big, Mama, I told her. I don’t think I believe anymore.

She tipped her head and smiled.

“But what if you are wrong?” she asked. What if? What if Santa is real and you don’t write the letter? And what harm if he isn’t and you do? Believing doesn’t always make you right, she said. I wrote the letter.

A silly childhood story, but it’s as good a question as any, don’t you think?

We love to think we are right, of course. But what if?

What if just one chair is not empty at Christmas dinner next year, because I put a silly piece of paper on my face in the grocery store? What did it hurt?

What if that chair that isn’t empty is mine? Or maybe the elderly lady who walks her doggy past my house? What if?

For the rest of my days, there will never be a Christmas untouched by the ache of losing my Mom during the holiday season. I don’t have to know you personally to know I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Not all death is preventable. But what if some is? What if?

Stay safe, my friends.