Please, Hold Their Hands When They are Dying

Dear doctors and nurses that are caring for COVID-19 patients:

Thank you for your hard work and your courage. Thank you for putting your lives at risk trying to save the lives of others. Thank you for trying to save my mother’s life for a whole week before she died. One month has passed and I am here left with a grieving heart and a special request: please, hold the hands of the COVID-19 patients when they are dying. Please, tell them how much they are loved and whisper a “go in peace”. Do it as your biggest act of compassion for the families that just like mine were not given the right to visit their loved ones at hospital isolation areas and never had a chance to say a proper goodbye.

Dear doctors and nurses that are caring for COVID-19 patients, hold the patients’ hands for all the daughters who like me have their hearts aching, wishing they were by their mom’s side while they were still alive fighting this virus. At a time when they were so fragile and could not breathe on their own. How we wished we were there holding our mothers’ hands. The same hands that always held ours when we needed. The hands that first held us when we were born, the hands that held ours when we were learning how to walk, that cleaned tears off of our faces so many times, that magically healed parts of our bodies just by kissing them, that made so many wonderful meals, that held our faces with so much love, that cared for our families for all these years.

How I wish I knew that one of you was holding my mother’s hand when she was dying. How I wished somebody told her. “Go in peace, Felomena, your family loves you and will miss you forever!”. I don’t know if anyone did that for her, but I like to believe that somebody did.

With love, Ana Rubenstein

Author: theoctopusmama

My name is Ana Rubenstein. I am a mother willing to inspire other mothers and to be inspired by them. I have two children and I often feel just like an octopus with its 8 tentacles multitasking and juggling the many hats I wear in life. Wife, daughter, sister, friend, Zumba instructor, and motherhood blogger. Nice to meet you, I am the Octopus Mama. View all posts by theoctopusmama