In the U.S., there are some 200,000 children who have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID. There is currently no systematic means to identify them. “We need a way to find these kids,” a professor of pediatrics said.
ast September, Noe Rodriguez, Jr., a thirty-nine-year-old security contractor, travelled from Tulsa to Dallas to visit his parents for Labor Day weekend. Several days after he returned home, he started suffering from diarrhea. Soon, he and his wife, Stephanie Hester-Rodriguez, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Izzy, who comes off as brilliant and darkly funny, described herself as “a bit of an oddball.” She has little interest in the trappings of teen-age girldom, such as makeup and clothes, preferring books and conversations about ideas. She and Noe were particularly close. “The talks we had after 10were magical,” she said. “We’d talk about everything—people, the nature of the universe, the Book of Genesis.
After Noe died, Izzy asked her mom to find an hourglass that could be used to keep time in board games. The family filled it with Noe’s ashes, and inscribed a tiny plaque with his name. Although his wife and daughter seemed fine, Bill was wracked with guilt. “Carla told me repeatedly that it wasn’t my fault,” he said. “But I was the one who brought it into our home.” Bill suspected that he’d contracted the virus on an emergency repair job in Tennessee a few days earlier. He was already vaccinated; the previous spring, as soon as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine became available, he’d driven four hours to get the shot.
Brianna had only two friends: she’d met one in a community-service group for girls, in 2019, and the other on Reality, a live-streaming app. Neither could help Brianna process her loss. She felt increasingly fearful when left alone in the house, but was reticent to tell her dad how scared she was. “I didn’t want to worry him,” she said. She was now homeschooling herself, and spent her days trying to learn eighth-grade math and social studies.
The first evening, the girls participated in Walk to the Line, an exercise in which the kids were asked to step forward if they’d lost a pet, a friend, a parent. “We do this right away, so they can feel like they’re not alone,” Audrey McCraw, the executive director of the Tristesse Grief Center, which runs the camp, told me. Kids identify first around their relationship to the person they’ve lost, rather than the cause of death.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Launch Of DC Power Index Prize To Honor Ukrainian Ambassador, Capitol Police Officer, Covid BioethicistThe inaugural DC Power Index Prize will honor Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova, Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards and National Institutes of Health bioethicist…
Read more »
WHO: COVID triples across Europe, hospitalizations doubleLONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization said Tuesday that coronavirus cases have tripled across Europe in the past six weeks, accounting for nearly half of all infections globally. Hospitalization rates have also doubled, although intensive care admissions have remained low.
Read more »
Blood Thickness May Play Role in Risk of COVID Death - MedicineNet Health NewsThe thickness of a person’s blood can be a matter of life or death if they contract COVID-19, a new study suggests.
Read more »
WHO: COVID triples across Europe, hospitalizations doubleThe World Health Organization says coronavirus cases have tripled across Europe in the past six weeks, accounting for nearly half of all infections globally.
Read more »
Secret docs reveal FBI investigated decision to give cash to Wuhan lab linked to COVID-19Newly released government records reveal the FBI investigated a decision by the National Institutes of Health to issue a grant that was tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Read more »