A recounting of how doctors had not known, in early February 2020, just what was happening. How we view this now, and how the survivors in the Black Community, and all communities find no solace in the what if’s.
The Covid Catalog Gone To Soon Pamela Stewart-White
The Covid Catalog remembers Pamela Stewart-White, who died February 7, 2020. Her daughter Donice said, she was my rock, my best friend. Pamela Stewart-White was an amazing person. You would be blessed to cross paths with her. Her humor, her smile, the level of understanding, and her great humility. I miss her every second of every day.
My Mom was truly a fighter. She’d battled through anything that had been thrown at her; man made or otherwise. She was able to fight through everything, and still come out shining. Leading up to her passing, about 17 days prior, she was suddenly faced with trouble breathing, infections that came from out of nowhere, and just struggling to do anything. I remember being upset that she didn’t tell me until after the fact. All she’d been doing was going back and forth to the hospital. I hadn’t been by to see her, so nothing was making sense really. Suddenly she was faced with the need to be admitted.
I visited with her 2 days in a row, once she was settled in the ICU. The plan was for me to come spend the day with her again on Thursday since I’d be working from home. Wednesday morning is when the call comes that something was terribly wrong. I will never forget several doctors saying “we don’t know what it is – we think it’s cancer, but cancer doesn’t move that fast”. 2 days later she was gone. All the tests; she was gone before we could find out the results.
My world stopped then, and it’s been moving in slow motion ever since. Of course a little over a month later, I’d find out what “more important people” had known all along – COVID was here and was destroying families without remorse. I lived very much in the place of blame. Blaming the former President. Blaming those around him that knew. Blaming everyone that knew how deadly this thing is and did absolutely nothing, other than probably warn their families and friends about the danger.
I just celebrated my second Mother’s Day without her. It seems weird to say celebrate because she’s not here, but for the sake of my own children, and my sanity honestly, I have to find joy in it for them. She’s been gone for 15 months, and the struggles for me to have some sort of normalcy still remain. The one thing that I have changed since she left, is to try not to think about what if we, the little people, had known sooner?
What if a vaccine, or anything to slow the process would’ve been available then? The what if’s had, and still have the power to make me have a nervous breakdown, so I can’t allow myself to be in that place. I have to live for now, as painful as that is. I won’t say that’s what she would’ve wanted, because she would’ve wanted to still be here – but I will say it’s what I want to do for her; in her honor, in her memory. To keep going and fulfill all the things she talked about doing, and to live the life she’s always wanted for me. I will miss her for the rest of my days, but she’ll never not be with me.
