I’m a Missouri COVID-19 widow. We need help, not platitudes about ‘heroes’ we lost

I am a Missouri COVID-19 widow. My husband was 37 when he died in the hospital on a ventilator, alone except for hospital staff, four days before my 33rd birthday. I was not allowed to see him, but I was allowed to see his body after he was gone. That’s something I’ll never forget. I have flashbacks at random times to that hospital room — memories that can drop me to my knees while I try to find my breath.

That was only the beginning of the nightmare. Never had I imagined exactly how many obstacles I would have to navigate and how much stress I would have to endure to create a new life for myself and my children. I joined an online group for widows and widowers and found so many were like me: young, often with children, often having lost the main wage earner of the family, sometimes with life insurance, sometimes not — and all of us struggling to deal with grief and cope with the absolute lack of support from society and our governments.

Our dead spouses, many of them, had been “essential workers” and “heroes.” That is, until they died and were forgotten and their families were left in agony and unsupported. We are in pain. We are struggling mentally, emotionally, physically and financially. We’re being penalized by mortgage companies and insurance companies, and fighting with health insurance companies over bills that should have been covered.

I had to hire an estate lawyer to deal with a recalcitrant mortgage company which was happy to take my money but reluctant to grant me control of the loan. Meanwhile, my family income had been reduced to one-third of what it had been when my husband was alive and I was desperate to find a competent daycare provider so I could increase my work hours, when all I really needed was to grieve my deep loss.

And yet, while we widows and widowers are struggling to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives, we see on the news that the governor of Ohio is offering five $1 million prizes to random Ohio residents for getting vaccinated. And that the money is coming from unused federal pandemic relief funds. To which I say: Gov. Mike DeWine, is this a joke to you? Thousands of young men and women have lost their partners in the prime of life to COVID-19 and are struggling financially, and this is how you choose to distribute funds? Some random resident of your state does their civic duty and wins $1 million?

Where is the help for your people who have lost the main wage earner of their family? Where is the help for the widowed mothers with young children? Where is the money for the mental health counseling needed by the grieving?

It’s a shame my husband can’t get the vaccine and win $1 million, because, you see, he’s dead. He can’t win those Six Flags tickets that the state of Illinois is offering, either. I got the vaccine because I wanted people to stop dying from COVID-19. That was incentive enough for me. But when there’s $5 million to incentivize vaccination and yet nothing for those who lost a family member, and society treats this like a game while thousands of us struggle to survive, I’m filled with deep frustration and anger.

We are screaming, but society is not listening. Our governments are not listening. There are signs by the highways thanking the “heroes,” but the fallen heroes’ families are abandoned. So I ask again: Is this a joke to you? Is anyone listening to us?

This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "I’m a Missouri COVID-19 widow. We need help, not platitudes about ‘heroes’ we lost."