Remembering Anita in a World of Covid

By Ed Acosta & Marcia Kresge

My passion and my intention is to tell mom's sad truth and hopefully bring change to how the elderly are discarded by our health care system. ~ Ed Acosta

On April 1, 2021 Anita Acosta was taken to a nearby hospital by ambulance due to her inability to breathe. Her son Edmundo, who was also her caregiver, walked to the hospital's emergency room because he also felt ill. Both tested positive for Covid, were immediately quarantined, and as a result were unable to see each other. Anita was admitted into the hospital while Ed was sent home after receiving a Covid antibody treatment.

Anita stayed in the hospital for treatment and even in the last hour and twenty minutes of her life no one on staff thought to call the family even though Ed's number and the number of her healthcare proxy agent were on file. The coldest reality of the Covid virus is the isolation and loneliness one endures before death. Ed had so many questions and disappointments especially for how her death or life could have happened at home with her family. But Covid protocols and family decisions about end of life care complicated the situation and made that impossible.

Anita was important to many people beyond her immediate family. ATD Fourth World had stayed in touch over the years since the family was displaced from Manhattan to Far Rockaway (a bus journey more than one hour and 20 miles). Here’s what ATD Fourth World Volunteers Vincent and Fanchette Fanelli remember about their friend Anita:

She liked to dress nicely and fancifully; you all inherited her artistic talent. Your mom is one of the first people Fanchette got to know on 4th street when she arrived from France at the end of 1968. You were still young then and your mom had to struggle with the 8 of you with much courage in that tough environment. ~ Vincent

Vincent joined us in 1972, so we both have a long history with the family through good and hard times. We can say that she was one of the founding members of the Fourth World Movement in the United States with the other families we got to know in the Lower East Side then. We remember the trips to the country and also our visits with her on 4th Street and later in Far Rockaway. She was always so full of life, even when she couldn't walk by herself any longer. ~ Fanchette

In closing Ed remembers his mother and shares his personal reflection in the hopes that it helps others who have struggled through this Pandemic season:

My mom was always concerned with the cares of the world, her children and being financially stable. We learn in the end that all our worries leave us which only breaks my heart even more. Death is the coldest of all things we will ever experience. It seemed so important at the time … all our aspirations and dreams fulfilled, The countless tears shed, the fears of uncertainty and the weight of regret. Yet when we die it all goes with us and none of that matters. What remains is what we meant to others and what they decide to hold on to to keep us alive. All of what made her who she was I hold onto with my every being so that as long as I live I won’t allow her to be forgotten. ~ Ed

Hopefully one day soon Ed will get the answers to his questions regarding his mother's death and justice will be served.