Remembering those lost in the pandemic

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — The dark cover came off revealing a 16-foot-tall sculpture completing Howard County’s COVID-19 memorial in Meadowbrook Park bringing back painful memories for those who suffered lasting losses like the family of 73-year-old Amir Rizvi.       

“It was August of 2020 when I remember personally driving both my mother and my father to the hospital when we found out they were positive for COVID-19 due to attending a family gathering a few weeks prior,” recalled Shahan Rizvi.
      
As his condition worsened, doctors recommended the patriarch of the family be placed on a ventilator.

“He said, ‘Listen, You can put me on the ventilator. It’s fine, but I’m telling you right now, I’m not coming back if you put me on there,’” his son told us, “That’s literally… he has a premonition of his own death.”
      
Now, the sculpture, a granite water feature and a surrounding grove of river Birch will provide a place to reflect and to remember.

“Howard County showed its resilience during the dark days of 2020 and beyond where we struggled to understand this horrific virus,” said County Executive Dr. Calvin Ball, “Now, we stand together as one.”

In addition to the victims, the memorial also pays tribute to the health workers, emergency managers and first responders who risked their lives during the pandemic every day.
      
A measure of commitment not lost upon Fire Chief Louis Winston, Jr.    

“They showed up with courage and compassion when uncertainty was at its highest,” said Winston, “and they did so, because service is who they are, not just what they do.”
      
But for all of the lives saved, others ended abruptly.Many of them in isolation.Suffering in silence.Cut off from those most dear to them. 

“Not my mother. Not me. My sister. None of us could visit,” Rizvi’s son recalled of his father’s final days.

“You watched him die on Facetime?” we asked.

“We watched him die on Facetime,” he acknowledged, “We watched him take his last breaths on Facetime.”