Hopelessness: Killer of Men

The undertakers paused and shouted. She could see their lips moving but could not hear what they were saying. It was only when she felt herself being dragged backwards that she realized that she had been about to step into the grave. She turned to face her aunt whose face was livid but when their eyes met, she softened her gaze almost as if she was saying, ‘I understand.’ Regina shook her head. No one could understand. Not until the earth had swallowed everyone that you’ve ever loved.

How could aunt Marcia possibly understand? No one else had braved through this tornado that had wrecked her home. For most people, Covid-19 was just something they heard on the news and discussed over breakfast but she was the one who had seen the ugly face of this virus. The hospital that had denied her plea to visit her father even in his direst moments had finally called. For them, he was just another statistic to add to their mortality rate but this was her dad! With her two feet, she had walked into the morgue to identify her father. As soon as they verified it was him, they had shoved his body back in and arrangements were made for his immediate burial. They had to create space for more bodies.

Regina watched shoved sand onto the casket burying the man whose blood ran through her veins. Could life ever be the same?  She wondered how her father would feel if she knew all their plans had been for naught. It didn’t matter that they had slaved their entire life paying funeral policies to ensure everyone would be there at their funeral. Only thirty people were allowed. A part of her was relieved that the old man had found rest. She knew the pain that came with this novel disease. This was not the way she had envisioned her parents would die. Theirs had been a long and hard life that should have ended with a less painful death. Her father should have passed away as an old man warm in his bed. Instead he had passed away in a dark corner in an overpopulated hospital without family. He had lain there for hours, unattended, drowning in his own misery with nothing but the smell of death in the understaffed public hospital.

 It was useless calling out for the nurses, she had seen the fear in their eyes which was gradually replaced by resentment the day she had fought her way into the ward. They resented him for needing their assistance knowing he could transmit this disease to them by simply breathing. The more he stayed on the ventilator, the more it must have felt like the world had deserted him. In the end, even his own lungs had bulked under the pressure, leaving him gasping for air but failing to inhale any until he suffocated to death.

 The phone in her pocket vibrated and with a sinking feeling, she took it out. It was the hospital again. There was no guessing what had happened, the virus must have devoured her mother too and could death ever deny the greedy grave anything? This time she didn’t even flinch when they told her the bad news. If the ancestors could see this, they would rip their clothes apart and wear sacks. It was unheard of to bury both parents on the same day but what choice did they have?

Taylor put a hand on Regina’s shoulder. Underneath the expressionless eyes was a storm of suppressed emotions. He wanted her to cry but from the way her lips were set in a thin line, she was using every ounce of energy to avoid feeling anything. The PCR result in his pocket was beginning to feel heavier by the hour. He sighed to release the emotions that he couldn’t put into words. How does one tell the love of their life that the very life they had planned out was now a distant dream?

He knew he would have to tell her. With all his underlying conditions, it would be a matter of time before the virus took its toll on his weak body. Then she would watch them bury him too…looking so tranquil on the outside whilst the soul was being torn apart. The thought that he had probably passed it on to her unknowingly made him feel cold. She coughed and he felt his stomach tighten. Later that night, he lay with her cuddled up but no words could cover the spasm between them. It was as if the end was near and it was. Regina did not live to see the next sun rise.

The doctors said it was pulmonary embolism but Taylor knew better. Regina had simply given up on life. The pandemic had turned her whole life upside down. In less than a week, she had buried both of her parents and three siblings. Among her documents, they found her PCR result. Negative. Regina was a physically healthy woman but a body with a hopeless spirit can never fight anything off. In a time in which everyone was caring so much about their bodies, no one was giving much thought to their state of mind. Even at her funeral, they all looked to Taylor to handle it like a man. To remain calm and collected not thrashing around and screaming as he wanted to. So with sealed lips, he drove himself home after the funeral with his face betraying nothing about his feelings like a man whilst his inner child screamed for help. It was only when he walked into the house after the burial that he truly understood what Regina must have felt. The empty hallway echoed the whispers of the ghost of the life that they would never live. He slumped on the couch and stayed there in the dark for the next two days, getting up only to eat. Even the medicine felt sour in his mouth and left him feeling guilty for being alive.

The world never saw Taylor again, only a shadow of the man that he had been but who cared? Everyone was busy burying their own dead and keeping the sick alive at all cost, no one had time to heal hopeless spirits. He was just another 24-year-old widower in a world where a million children were orphaned by Covid-19. With thousands dying, depression would be the least of the doctors’ problems but what if that is the problem? What if isolating the patients and not setting up facilities to enable visitation or minimum interaction is actually contributing to the deaths in hospitals? Away from the comfort of their homes, without anything to remind the patients about how much they are loved and locked away in a depressive environment where they have nothing to look forward to, they lose any desire to live or enter a state of hopelessness.

‘Until we come to the realization that our patients’ mental state should be considered, the pandemic will continue to swallow the people we love…killing them in the very places they should have recovered…the hospitals that have become places of lost hope and death.’ Dr Tuni dabbed the corners of his eyes. The female doctors in the role in front of him had tears spilling out of their eyes too. Silence continued to rule the room as the words Dr Tuni had said sank in. When he was sure that he had gotten his point across, he switched on the projector and went through the case studies that he had.

‘Earlier, this week, a man was admitted into the hospital. He came complaining of a sharp chest pain and upon testing, he was found SARS-Cov-2 positive. A severe case of Covid-19….’ The scream in the corridor made the doctor pause and he rushed outside. A young woman was wrestling the nurses with strength that amazed everyone who was watching. After pushing them aside, she rushed into the ward and hugged the frail old man lying on a small bed in the corner. The nurses looked shocked but none made a move to stop her and when Dr Tuni realized why, he squinted his eyes as he always did when he was angry. The old man pushed the woman away telling her to be careful, he didn’t want to infect her but she didn’t care. Torn between ensuring minimum contact is obtained and seeing his belief being acted out, Dr Tuni watched the scene unfold with conflicted emotions. The display of emotion would be good and motivate the patient, giving them the will to fight to live but it would be exposing the healthy patient to the virus.

He watched as the old man ordered his daughter to leave and as she walked away with tears in her eyes, he cursed the day the virus found itself in their lives. That same day, when he went to check on the old man, he found the bed empty. The man had died…alone. Soon, the same bed would be occupied, almost as if no life had been lost. Dr Tuni couldn’t even count the deaths that haunted him. Patients screaming to be saved and there was nothing he could do. He was sure that it was getting to him too but the final straw was the young woman’s death which was reported to him early the next morning...Regina, the woman he wished he had known earlier. Hopelessness, the killer of man drove him to the therapist’s office seeking hope before his sad thoughts won him over…what use is a man without hope for a better tomorrow?