COVID-19 is Real

By Ridimerb Diaz-Ramirez | Published October 16, 2023

On April 12, 2020, I received a phone call from the hospital stating that my grandmother, Felicita Beltre, had passed away due to pneumonia caused by COVID-19.

COVID-19 seemed like a made-up disease to so many people, including me. Reality quickly hit once we got the call telling us my grandmother was gone. 

Two weeks before this devastating day for me and my family, I was hanging out with friends, and I simply remember not being able to taste anything.

Rubbing alcohol didn’t make a difference in front of my nose, and a spoonful of hot sauce did not affect my throat.

My friends and I gatheredto have a seafood boil day despite the warnings from the government to keep social distance and avoid gatherings. 

That same day, I remember my friends telling each other that we didn’t believe COVID-19 was real. Instead, we thought the government was trying to distract us from something bigger. 

Upon going home that afternoon, not understanding why I didn’t taste anything, my mom called me, saying my grandmother had to be taken to the doctor because she wasn’t feeling well, and I needed to help her get in the car.

COVID-19 never crossed my mind, not even once. The whole time, I assumed my grandmother was just homesick because she had been in the country for less than a year and wished to return to her homeland in the Dominican Republic.

My grandmother had been complaining about not feeling well for about three days now, and the minute she went to the doctor, he sent her straight to the hospital due to her high fever.

We couldn’t go to the hospital with her due to COVID-19 guidelines, so we communicated with the staff through phone and video calls. 

After arriving at the hospital, it wasn’t long until we got a call saying my grandmother had tested positive for COVID-19 and that we should all get tested. 

Everyone in my household came back negative except me. I was freaking out and couldn’t believe what was happening.

At the time, there were no medicines or known remedies for the virus, and a vaccine did not exist. It was still so new, and many people were reportedly dying. Suddenly, I thought I was going to die.

As the days passed, my symptoms got bad, but my grandmother was doing even worse. The doctors didn’t give us much reassurance, and once she became delirious, they talked about making her comfortable rather than being invasive due to her age, 86.

My mom didn’t want to accept what was happening since she wanted to hold out hope, but as the days went by, the family had to decide what to do.

We couldn’t go see her or talk to her because it would have required someone to be in the room with her. They would run the risk of catching the virus. It was a complete nightmare.

The worst part was seeing my grandmother deteriorate so quickly through a cell phone camera, unable to be there for her. All I remember is her saying, “Get me out of here, I am going to die.” 

Once she was diagnosed with pneumonia due to the virus being very aggressive in her body, and her feet started turning purple, my mom and her siblings made the harsh decision of making her comfortable instead of putting her on a ventilator. 

According to what the doctor told us, most elderly people placed on ventilators didn’t make it and instead spent their last few days or hours uncomfortable. 

A couple of hours after that decision was made, I received a phone call from the hospital with the news. They said she had peacefully passed away.

I dreaded telling my mother the news; part of me was angry. I was angry that this was happening and angry at myself for not realizing how real COVID-19 truly is.

Due to COVID-19, we couldn’t make the usual arrangements to send her off properly. We weren’t allowed to have a funeral. Instead, we had to say our goodbyes from a distance, and only one person was allowed to enter the cemetery for the burial.

Her body wasn’t even prepared for burial. Instead, she had to be placed in the casket with the bag the hospital sent her in due to the fear of the illness spreading since there wasn’t much knowledge of the virus yet.

It took a month just to bury her. When we finally did, I had to be the one to go by myself into the cemetery because my mother couldn’t bear to do it. The rest of her siblings were in the Dominican Republic.

This experience was traumatizing. Losing someone so quickly who was in good health must be one of the hardest experiences.

Regardless, this was an eye-opening moment for me. Being ignorant of what’s happening in the world will never be a mistake again for me.

I believe that ignorance and people not taking COVID-19 as seriously as we should are probably the reasons why we were in the pandemic for as long as we were. 

I know now that I will never again listen to the uninformed and pay attention to important news because, despite the naysayers, I learned the hardest way that COVID-19 was and is real.

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