Postcards From The Pandemic: Losing A Loved One

In early March, ideastream's Chief Marketing Officer Todd Mesek lost his brother Tim suddenly to a heart attack. As the family made arrangements to remember their lost loved one, the coronavirus changed their plans to grieve with family and friends. The Mesek family is now searching for ways to mourn and remember Tim from their homes.

Mourning Alone

It was an experience that I can only describe as surreal. Like any death, it’s a difficult time, especially when it’s a sibling.

We had a world that we knew, and right in the beginning of March, when we’re starting to talk about coronavirus, is when my brother died. His wife, my brother, they’re in Mexico and we get a call that he’s had a heart attack. You know, a couple hours later he’s gone.

You suddenly had this one day that life was somewhat normal, to a time where my brother was gone and the world changed around us. We weren’t going to work, the kids weren’t in school, we couldn’t be around friends and family, we couldn’t get together. We couldn’t do all the things you do in a normal time, much less the things you need to do when the family experiences a death.

We actually had a funeral and a memorial service planned. And then between the time that the obituary was printed and the date that was scheduled, we were told that we couldn’t do it anymore. My own mother, who has lost now two sons, can’t get out to grieve with the family, because her apartment is on lockdown.

We had some moments that we were able to go to a brother or sister’s house where we could spend time together or just be together, but all the things that we do in our society to process this, to deal with it, to remember someone, they weren’t accessible to us. You realize how important all those things are.

It’s not just the process of going through the funeral, but connecting with his old friends that I don’t see regularly, to share a story, to ask a question, just to come together to cry, to laugh, to do all those things.

It’s those things, and the lack of the ability to go through a funeral or a grieving process in a normal way, that makes me wonder if I’ve fully dealt with it yet. Because we don’t have that communal experience, there’s a hunger, there’s a desire to do that. There will be some sort of service, we just don’t know what it is or when it is yet because we’re not sure what the options are.

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The family had planned a funeral and memorial service for Tim, but both were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [Todd Mesek]

Remembering

You search for him, and you search for ways to process it. And there’s this gap, because there’s so many things that were different and so many things that changes at once.

He would go to my kids’ lacrosse games, or we would bike together, or we’d do the things that families do together. I find myself through this process looking for old voicemails where he’s calling and asking when the game is. Just hearing his voice is something that helps me hold onto him.

My boys know their aunts and uncles and they’re close with them, they have a relationship with each of them. And my boys are only now to the age where they understand death a little bit, they’re 10 and 12.

I told my kids that Uncle Tim was sick and that he needed their prayers, and they went to bed. And by the time they woke up in the morning, we had gotten the news that he had died.

I didn’t tell them right away, I waited. They were still at school that day. They went to lacrosse practice and I picked them up from practice and I told them, I told them that Uncle Tim was gone.

Because they knew him and they had a relationship with him, they had experiences with him. That’s one of the only things I have, is to share those stories with my sons and to go on bike rides with my sons and to play lacrosse and to say, ‘Uncle Tim would have been here,’ or ‘Uncle Tim would have liked this.’

Tim Mesek on a bike ride with one of his nephews. [Todd Mesek]

He was a really skilled, exquisite carpenter. He had this ability to really take time and attention and care and love and put that into his work.

A TV console or a cabinet or some piece of furniture that he did, they’re exquisite works, and now all of a sudden, those things are taking on a whole new meaning because that’s something you can connect to him. You can touch it, you can feel it.

He’s given us things to leave behind that we’ll remember him with. Those things will help us heal.

You find a way to deal with it, you find a way to adjust, but it’s different. And it might take a little bit longer this time.