Let’s Learn from the Past~Holding Hands Matters

 I am glad that I am not in charge of making decisions that impact the lives of so many. It must be so difficult to know what is the right decision to make when it impacts your community, state, country or world. Thanksgiving this year is two years since we lost my sister, Teri, to Covid after twenty-one days of her being alone in the ICU. The decision to not allow family members in was not the right choice. I know that and mourn the fact that her husband was not allowed to be in the room with her. He told them he would stay out of the way, not leave when he came in, sign away his life to say that he was responsible if he got sick. But there was no budging the hospital there or across the world. Because of this, too many died alone and families suffered at home longing to just hold a hand. I don’t fault those who made this or other decisions. But I hope that we learned from it. Never again should we deny family the opportunity to choose for themselves the risk they would take to be near a loved one. 

Allen says dropping Teri off at the hospital when she couldn’t get breath was the most difficult day of his life. For twenty plus days he could FaceTime her but barely hear her over the machined that were giving her that breath that sustained her. But he so desperately needed to be there beside her. It haunts him that she was alone. It haunts him that he wasn’t with her. It haunts each of us that Teri was alone when she never let any of us be alone but was with us when we needed her. 

I am thankful to hospital staff who hopefully were kind and loving. I am thankful for the FaceTime that each of us got to share with her. I am thankful for her faith and knowing she is with Mom and Dad and Ryan. But I miss my sister and am sad that her family grieves not only her death but the weeks before when they were helpless to be near her. Holding hands matters. Let’s never make that mistake again on the  cost of not being together. Would she have survived if she was not alone? We will never know. But she would have had more strength just from holding hands with her sweet husband. This I believe with all my heart.