How did all of this happen to us? Tom was feeling fine when the doctor said, after his routine stress test, that he wanted a CT done to see if he might need a stent. We scheduled it right away because we had another European adventure planned for June. The CT was scheduled for 3/10. Tom had a really bad allergic reaction to the dye and had to go back to the hospital for IVs of Benadryl and prednisone to get the dye flushed out of his system. He was admitted for 2 days and then I brought him home with oral medication. Days passed and at first I thought he was improving and just had to shake this. As days passed I could see that this apparently was not the case. His doctor wanted blood work done and by this point you know what was going on in the hospital. But he had to go back. He was really sick. On 3/27 he was taken to the hospital for the blood work and we found out he had pneumonia and the Covid-19 virus. I think it is safe to assume he contracted the virus on the trip to the hospital to treat the allergic reaction. On 4/2 the love of my life and my best friend died.

I keep asking myself how is this possible? How could he be gone? We were talking about how we would spend the “shelter-in-place” period that we heard was coming and everything was closing. We actually loved being home without anything scheduled. We would plan a “snow day” every so often just so that we could be home and relax. Tom said to me “as soon as I start to feel better we’ll plan “our” time”.

Now I just keep thinking about our years together and I am filled with such pain that I just don’t know what to do with myself. There are couples, and then there are COUPLES. We were a COUPLE-capital letters, bold type, underlined. We enjoyed every minute of our life together. He made me laugh every day. He brought out the inner child in each of us and we found wonder and joy in everything we did. Every time I walked down the stairs when we were going out he would tell me “you are gorgeous”. I would tell him to clean his glasses and he would say I just needed to get used to the fact that I am. Every day he woke up happy and ready to start the day and the first thing he would say was “Hi Honey!”. When he was in this sick period I said, we’re not having a very good week are we…and he said every week is good that I’m with you. Was I living in a dream or what?

Tomorrow is one month since Tom’s death. There would never be enough years for me to be with this man and I was robbed by this insidious virus. I am grateful to the nurses who took care of him. They were compassionate and knew they were filling in for family who were not allowed to be there. They made sure he always had his phone so that we could talk frequently and he could see his kids and grandchildren on FaceTime. Right before he was to be intubated on the day he died, his nurse got me on the phone and lowered his mask and we were able to FaceTime and tell each other how we loved each other and he told me to tell the kids how much he loved them. I think he knew he was not going to make it. I told him not to be afraid. I hope that he flew right into the arms of God.

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