ASHINGTON, September 29 (Sputnik), Barrington M. Salmon - New York-area resident Sabila Khan, who lost her father due to COVID-19, decided to devote her time supporting survivors and educating people so they take the pandemic seriously and stop questioning science
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th September, 2020) ASHINGTON, September 29 (Sputnik), Barrington M. Salmon - New York-area resident Sabila Khan, who lost her father due to COVID-19, decided to devote her time supporting survivors and educating people so they take the pandemic seriously and stop questioning science.
Khan is left with the memories of her father, Shafqat - married for 50 years, a father of 3 and grandfather of 7 - who died on April 14 after coming down with COVID-19. He was a larger-than-life figure, the beating heart and energy center of her family and his community.
Khan remembers a man who never allowed any challenge to defeat him, who worked hard, made numerous sacrifices to provide for his family, and whose passion for politics, involvement in community activism and love of people made him a revered patriarch in Jersey City's Pakistani community.
"I personally have never gone through losing an immediate family member. This is my first brush with death," Khan said softly. "But I feel like there's nothing normal about this grief - it's overwhelming, it's complicated, it's traumatic."
For the past 10 years, her father had been suffering from Parkinson's. While in a rehab facility, his health took a turn for the worst, Khan told Sputnik.
"My mom, my brother and I visited him every day until the facility closed its doors on March 11. We couldn't see him after that," said Khan, who has worked in publishing for almost 20 years. "I spoke to him and he reassured me that he was okay, that he would be okay. In late March, he stopped calling and he wouldn't talk when we tried to talk to him, but the nurses told us he was fine. He got sick in late March but we didn't find out about COVID-19 until April 1."
Khan said her family found out that a patient at the facility had COVID-19 in what she describes as "a very roundabout way."
"My brother was speaking to the director who mentioned it. Then one day we were told he had a fever," she said.
Khan said the facility closed down in late March as COVID-19 spread across New York and the tri-state area.
"COVID sounded very serious. I was very worried because it was in the height of COVID-19 in the New York-New Jersey area," she explained. "On Monday, April 6, it was 10 days that we hadn't heard his voice. The nurse said he was very congested. And I said we had no idea he was even sick."
Khan said the family was notified that facility staff had sent him to the emergency room of a hospital blocks from the family's home.
"I was beside myself after I heard the news. He spent three days in what I imagine was a war zone of an ER before they found a bed for him. My father was a big, tough guy but he hated hospitals. I can't imagine the fear... the hospital is three blocks from us and we couldn't see him. It was special type of torture," she said. "He was doing pretty well. He never made it onto ventilators. We have doctors in the family, including one in infectious disease, who said it was looking pretty good but on April 14th, they said he went into cardiac arrest. We urged them to keep trying and they tried for 15 minutes but he died."
Sabila said her father was diagnosed with Parkinson's 10 years ago and she was under no illusions that he would live forever.
"But never, in my wildest dreams did I think he'd die like this, without his family by his side. I wish we could have talked to him. We couldn't see him at all. That was the hardest part. I understand they were trying to prevent the spread but it was torture," she said.
Khan said her parents traveled to Libya in 1973 where Khan worked as secretary at a pharmaceutical company.
"There wasn't much opportunity in Tripoli so he applied for a computer certification course at New York University and he and my mom sold everything they had to make the trip to the States," she recalled. "The plan was that he would find a job that would sponsor him."
Unfortunately, she said that job never materialized.
"We had no money to go back to Pakistan or Libya so we were undocumented for over a decade," said Khan. "My father worked six days a week, 12 hours a day working at a friend's store. We didn't have health insurance, we lived on the edge for many years but my parents shielded us from these realities. We had a safe, loving childhood."
Khan said her father was very interested in American politics.
"Some of my earliest memories are of watching the news, debates, and primaries with my father, and his encouraging me to discuss, unpack, and examine the most serious political issues of the day," she added.
"Many years later, it struck me as odd that he was so interested in politics - he didn't actually vote in a presidential election until 2000. He told me that the politics of a nation impacted everyone in that nation - documented or not."
Khan said the family received their green cards and became legal in 1992, and freshly-minted citizens in 1998.
"He was an extraordinary man, a legend in the Pakistani community in Jersey City," Khan said.
Khan said her father created a community organization in 2000 called Pakistanis for America to increase voter registration.
"Then after 9/11 he pivoted and held panels where diverse communities came together to talk beyond their differences," she said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eight of 10 of the COVID deaths in America have been adults 65 and older. The fear that Khan has always felt about the dangers this global pandemic poses to people in the US and around the world, is now leavened by a deep reservoir of grief and pain.
She said in her family's religion, her dad had to be buried as soon as possible. The family was informed that only one cemetery was open and staff were overwhelmed with bodies. But a cousin stepped in to facilitate the process and a friend was able to pick him up a few hours later.
"He was buried the next day and, in one of the most surreal experiences of our lives, the funeral was livestreamed. My mom was with me," Khan said. "Every religion and culture has rites and ceremonies marking death - in the absence of this, grief is prolonged, grief is complicated, and grief becomes trauma. The whole COVID-bereaved community is dealing with trauma."
Khan said four days after her father's passing, as she looked for ways to deal with her grief, she realized there was no group that offered a place for families of COVID victims to gather, support each other and grieve. So she created a Facebook group and named it COVID-19 Loss Support for Family and Friends.
"In those early days, we spread word of the group in other local Facebook groups I was a part of," she said. "Even today, most of the people in the group are from the NY-NJ area. It's grown since the early days and become a safe space for people to mourn. Recently someone posted at 3:00 a.m., saying her mother had just died and she didn't know what to do. There were 20 comments in response to her overnight. It was such a beautiful moment."
The group, she added, has given her "a sense of purpose."
"I feel like there's a through-line from my father's community service to what I'm doing for this community now. Everything is triggering for us - tv, social media, family, friends, everything. I'm so glad that I'm able to do this," she said.
Sabila said her Facebook circle is liberal and Democratic "so no one is questioning COVID."
"One time, I went down the rabbit hole to debate this issue and felt emotionally broken. COVID is touching and tearing people up. This group has really given me life. I don't know what I would do without it," she said.
Khan said she despairs as she sees the devastation COVID has wrought across the country. Sabila has felt extremely angry because the more than 204,000 deaths and millions of COVID-19 cases were avoidable.
"Yes, politics is the reason why he's dead," Khan said somberly. "While I'm very angry about how my father died, I've made a very conscious choice to not live in that anger. I just can't live in that space and be healthy," she said.
Journalist Bob Woodward's tapes, released in early September, of Trump admitting he downplayed COVID-19 "was a triggerfest for our community," she said.
"Our loved ones didn't have to die. I just want politicians and Americans to stop questioning science. It blows my mind that people still do in the 21st century. I wish people would trust science," she added.
Khan said she is struck by the reality that after 9/11 the country came together against a common enemy, but this pandemic has caused divisions and "vitriol, anger, suspicion."
"It's not important that my father's face and name be in a memorial. Some of those in my group want and need this," she explained. "But I don't want COVID to be the defining event of my father's life. He had a long, rich, vibrant life, especially contributing to his community. In starting this group I'm doing this for him. Keeping him alive."
And in order that those taken by coronavirus and their families are not forgotten, organizers have pulled together a National COVID Remembrance on October 4 in Washington, DC.
"This is a reminder to officials, those who run the country, in highest office, that we have experienced unbelievable loss and we need to be part of the conversation. We will not be ignored," Khan said. "I'm so thankful that this is happening. It's really, really important. There's this idea that 9/11 was traumatic, and the fact that the pandemic has killed exponentially more people is the reason why this must be done."
The bereaved community is going through trauma, she added, so it is very important that loved ones are not forgotten or relegated to statistics.
"We need them memorialized now. We need our trauma to be acknowledged now. It is minimizing to us when people don't take COVID seriously. This pandemic feels endless," Sabila said.
Dionne Warwick, Grammy award-winning singer and former US Ambassador for Health, will host the first National COVID-19 Remembrance. She will be joined virtually and in person by faith leaders, health care professionals, frontline workers, and Americans who have lost someone they love to COVID-19.
Organizers say six months into this pandemic, America has not yet had a collective moment to grieve and remember the parents, spouses, and children the US lost. This program, which will be streamed virtually to ensure audience and performer safety, will be the first time the nation will mourn together and honor the frontline workers who are risking so much, and receiving so little. Participants in the first National COVID-19 Remembrance will honor that sacrifice by calling for a national plan for recovery.
Twenty-thousand empty chairs will be placed on the National Mall to represent a fraction of the more than 200,000 lives lost due to COVID-19. With no end in sight, organizers are calling for action.
