As more and more people line up for vaccines, and the number of deaths drops, COVID-19 seems to finally be loosening its hold of Michigan.
Before the good tidings, of course, was the darkness.
For a year, the state has been vanquished by a disease that has made a shambles of ritual and tradition, a mockery of milestones and rites of passage.
The losses have mounted: jobs, classes, religious services, sporting events. The coronavirus has stolen time itself. Left in its place are nostalgia, loneliness and trauma.
It was one year ago Thursday that the World Health Organization declared the scourge a pandemic.
While the 12 months of turmoil lifts for some of us, others remain mired in the shadows. One in five Americans has lost a relative or close friend to the pathological pathogen, according to a poll by the Associated Press.
The virus has taught those left behind that life is not only unpredictable but short. The plague might end; their grief will carry on.
Among the Michiganians bearing those lessons is a China Township family who still isn’t convinced their patriarch is gone.
Another is a Grand Blanc woman who copes with the loss of her entire family by hearing her late husband in her mind.
A third is a Detroit couple who use the death of their 5-year-old daughter to show others the importance of taking the disease seriously.
Here are their stories from a year of peril and pestilence.
'They want me to go on'
On some days, Sandy Brown hears her late husband, Freddie, profess how much he loves her, that love is eternal, that she will be all right.
The words fill her with strength and peace.
Those qualities are important because, during a three-day period in March 2020, COVID-19 killed her husband and then her son — her entire family.
“I have good days and I have some not-so-good days. It comes in waves,” the Grand Blanc woman said last week.
As for how she perseveres, there is only one answer, she said. Her faith has carried her and continues to carry her, day by day by day.
She phones her church every night for prayer call. She views online Bible study. She attends Sunday services through her computer.
Her pastor at Jackson Memorial Temple in Flint invokes her names as he prays for Freddie Jr. and Freddie III.
“Without a strong faith, I don’t think — I know — I couldn’t have made it,” she said.
She misses her husband and how caring he was. Freddie, 59, was an old-school gent who always held the door for her.
She still marvels at how good he smelled and how well he dressed. The scent was Aramis cologne. His fashion sense drew Flint-area ministers seeking advice about clothes.
They were married 35 years.
I have good days and I have some not-so-good days. It comes in waves.
And the younger Freddie, 20, was Sandy’s miracle baby. After two miscarriages, she had given up on having a child when, at 40, she became pregnant.
Her son was sweet and shy and always made his mom laugh.
“He was my sidekick,” she said. “He would jump in the car, ‘Mom, where we going now?’”
Sandy, who was a real estate agent a year ago, now just focuses on taking care of her mom, who lives with her. She also tries to remember to take care of herself, as well.
When COVID arrived in her home, she wasn’t sure she would ever escape its clutches.
If she could offer advice to others, it would be to connect with something that helps ground you, whether it’s religion or something else.
If you focus on good times, eventually your memories will change from painful to happy ones, she said. After having lived it, she tries to encourage others and become a blessing in their lives.
“I realize I’m not the only person who has suffered loss,” she said.
And, finally, she listens to the man who always looked and smelled so good. He tells her to just hang in there, that she can handle the twin tragedies.
She still cries a lot but tries to stay strong for her husband and son.
“They want me to be OK,” she said. “They want me to go on.”
A princess gone too soon
Vonnie and Ebbie Herbert, a police officer and firefighter, know something about saving lives.
And now their little girl is saving lives, too.
The Detroit couple is using the death of Skylar, 5, to show others that COVID-19 doesn’t care how old you are, what color you are, what city you’re from.
“Skylar is shining her light,” said her dad, Ebbie. “She’s telling the world this can happen to any family.”
Before April 19, Skylar was going to do a lot more than that.
The little girl with the big personality was smart, precocious and funny. Her kindergarten teacher said she solved 100 math problems in five minutes, and then helped other students do the same.
Her parents had no doubt their only child would leave her stamp on the world.
Instead, she tested positive for COVID-19 and developed a rare form of meningitis and brain swelling. She was the first child in Michigan to die from the disease.
“You were the best thing that ever happened to me,” Vonnie wrote to Skylar in a note that was read during the funeral. “I had so many plans for us, baby girl.”
Although those plans unraveled as quickly as they were made, the couple carries on.
Vonnie, a 26-year veteran with the Detroit Police Department, bears her load one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.
She recalls the many times Skylar made her laugh. When she isn’t laughing, she is crying.
Ebbie, who has been with the Detroit Fire Department for 18 years, struggles to get out of bed some mornings. There are so many things he misses about his princess.
He has dedicated his life to ensure her death meant something. He doesn’t want anyone else to experience what he went through.
“There is a purpose why this happened,” he said. "Let’s do something positive out of this.”
There is a purpose why this happened. Let’s do something positive out of this.
A firefighter gave Vonnie a mask with Skylar’s picture on it. She not only wears it but uses it to impart lessons about the pandemic.
She tells people who Skylar was, how she died and how she was the first Michigan child to pass away from the disease. She says it matter-of-factly, not looking to scold anyone.
If their pint-sized angel can encourage someone to wear a mask, it would make her mom happy.
“I always knew people were going to know her name one day,” she said.
But masks are one thing, vaccines are another. The Herberts were leery about the COVID-19 vaccination. There seemed to be a lot of unanswered questions.
They talked to Skylar’s doctor at Beaumont Children’s Hospital in Royal Oak, who convinced them it was safe.
They received the shots, remembering their pledge to their daughter. They hope to serve as an example to others, saying the quicker people are vaccinated, the faster things will return to normal.
For a couple who lost their 5-year-old daughter to a disease no one had heard of, normalcy sounds awfully good.
Saying goodbye via FaceTime
After 11 months, Norma Pringle still isn’t convinced her dad is gone.
If someone dies, isn’t there supposed to be a funeral? If your mother’s heart is breaking, aren’t you supposed to wrap your arms around her?
COVID-19, which has taken so much from so many, also stole closure.
Pringle can’t convince herself that Nate Walker died from the disease on April 3.
“Never in my life did I think my parents — my father — would have to die alone,” she said. “It’s hard to get over that,”
Walker was 80 going on 40, said his family. He turned his garage into a woodworking shop and attached a greenhouse to that.
If it was summer, he was in one of two gardens in the backyard, growing potatoes and asparagus. In the winter, he was in the garage making bookshelves and dollhouses.
A carpenter by trade, he could fix anything and always seemed to have the perfect tool to do it, said a granddaughter, Alyson Dersam of St. Clair.
“That’s just the way he was. He wanted it done right so he did it himself,” she said with a laugh.
In March 2020, Walker barely ate anything for five days, said his family. Nothing in the house tasted any good, he complained.
COVID-19 was still in its infancy so it wasn’t widely known that loss of taste was one of the hallmarks of the disease.
Walker didn’t have a fever or bad cough, which were more commonly associated with the illness, said relatives. A trip to the doctor didn’t uncover anything unusual.
As he grew progressively weaker and more confused, his family brought him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
If the pandemic has left Walker’s family with one memory, it’s a searing one. They’ll never forget how he died alone.
Never in my life did I think my parents — my father — would have to die alone. It’s hard to get over that.
For five days, they couldn’t visit him at Ascension River District Hospital in East China. For five days, they settled for a single daily update about his condition.
When he was taken off a ventilator and it was time to say goodbye, his wife and children did so through an iPhone video call.
“No one should have to say goodbye via FaceTime,” Pringle said. “We should have been there holding his hand, telling him how much we loved him.”
Afterward, as they grieved, they, too, were alone. They were all quarantined in separate homes.
“I just wanted to go hug my mom,” Pringle said.
Because a person’s life is more than the disease that killed him, Walker’s loved ones also have happy memories of him.
The Navy vet was strong and independent but, when it came to his grandchildren, he melted like a candle on a birthday cake, said relatives.
In Papa’s Workshop in his garage, he built cedar chests he presented to each grandkid on their high school graduation.
They have used the furniture to store all manner of things, books, clothes, knickknacks. And they have a place to put their remembrances of the family patriarch, 80 years in the making.
fdonnelly@detroitnews.com
(313) 223-4186
Twitter: @prima_donnelly
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