I photographed Jenn in July of 2020. Her experience with the pandemic is a deeply personal story, and I prefer to let her tell it in her own words:
Before the pandemic, I was managing Musica. I decided to close the venue in March of 2020. We had a fantastic event, and it felt like the correct note to leave on at the time. We had a sold-out show scheduled the following week, and I canceled it. It didn’t feel right having 400 folks in a room. It was the correct decision.
My husband was working from home at the time, my son was in high school, and I found routines to keep me sane. I took on a few creative consulting projects, and made a lot of art. I knew I wouldn’t go back to the venue. I didn’t want to do late nights and crowds again.
I became the Executive Director of The Nightlight in June 2021. It was my dream job at the place I missed most during the shutdown. All I wanted was to see a movie at The Nightlight. I started one week before the theater reopened at a limited capacity, and slowly, folks started coming back. It’s still my dream job, and I love everything about the place and our community. I am lucky to do what I love every day.
The pandemic revealed that one side of my family and I had very different feelings and beliefs about COVID-19 and vaccines. I am high-risk, so I set boundaries for myself and my family at home. My mom was opposed to the vaccine, and we often spoke about it. I begged her to get vaccinated. We talked on the phone almost daily, but did not visit in person except for occasional outdoor visits.
I called her the week of Thanksgiving 2021, but she wasn’t answering. A few days later, she picked up the phone, and I could hear it in her voice immediately. She acknowledged she had Covid, and my heart sank. She had been sick for a week and didn’t want me to know. After days of begging her to go to the hospital, she finally agreed to let me call an ambulance.
She already had hypoxia by the time they got there. Ten days later, she died. The nurse held the phone so I could say my goodbyes.
I am the only child and was left to handle all of her arrangements and sort through everything while navigating the death of my mom during a pandemic. Plus, it was Christmas, and six months into a new job. I have a mighty and loving support system that helped me keep it together when needed and held me while I was mourning.
I miss her terribly. It’s been four years almost to the day. Losing a parent changes you forever. The holidays are hard. I’ve openly wept in the card aisle at Buehler’s on a Friday night. At work. In my car. Wherever. You don’t get to choose when grief is going to sneak up on you. Sometimes it just punches you in the face.
I believe it’s important to remember that the pandemic wasn’t just a strange time when we wiped down our groceries and all became paranoid; it was a serious virus that took countless lives and destroyed families. I have had strangers try to start arguments with me by asking if my mom had previous medical issues, which is callous and wildly inappropriate. I will shut it down. I am not the one to argue with about this. The answer is that she would have lived had she been vaccinated. That is the truth.
She would be so mad at me for sharing this, but this is my story, it happened, and it mattered. I hope that sharing it helps remind others that lots of people, people who were very loved and are very missed, are no longer with us because of COVID-19.
July 2020
Merriman Hills