Call 911. Sorry.

I will start by telling you that my niece (I will call her “Lynn”) has been in ICU with COVID-19 for the past 12 days.?She was intubated 10 days ago.?John, her live-in boyfriend for more than a decade, was vaccinated.?Lynn, by her own choice was not. John had a breakthrough infection even though he was vaccinated. Lynn contracted it from him.?While John’s case was worse than usual for someone with a vaccine, he was able to remain at home, and ultimately started to recover.

John would normally call the hospital between 530A and 6A which was before shift change at the hospital to get the latest on Lynn’s condition. Then he would drive in to see her.?This most recent morning he was probably told Lynn’s body has entered a period of organ failure and shutdown. There is no longer enough energy for her to overcome the infection. We think of COVID as a lung disease, but it attacks the entire body. All her organs were filled with this virus, and they were all dying.?

So, John knew after the call that barring a divine miracle, the likelihood was that Lynn would not survive. It could be days. It could be hours. But just like the last stages of cancer or any other disease, the cascade had begun.?The more momentum it gained, the more inevitable the outcome.

The “do not resuscitate” order was given. Even if she was to survive, Lynn would most likely have permanent, debilitating lasting effects.?Lynn’s mother has dementia, and Lynn did not want to become like her. Prayers for healing changed to prayers for comfort and mercy.?The time is soon. We have not heard anything since last night.

At 6:10 AM local time after he made the call to the hospital, John sent a terse and abrupt text message to Lynn’s uncle, Chuck, who was her nearest relative. It simply read, “Call 911. Sorry.”

Chuck wrestled with its meaning for about 5 minutes before calling me.?I told him he had to make it.?I feared the worst, and I believe he did as well. Through well-oiled coordination, the proper authorities arrived at John and Lynn’s home minutes later.

The coroner said it was one of the most organized and well-planned suicides she had ever seen.?There was a note at the front door explaining how the door was to be open, where the aging dog was tied, and how to approach it without startling it.?The other dog had been taken to animal shelter a couple days earlier. There was food set out for the other pets.

There were other notes throughout the house giving other details, including where he could be found, as well as ones saying goodbye. He had left an unnotarized but highly detailed and legally identifiable will, leaving all his belongings to Chuck.

John was found in the bathroom. He used a short-barrel shotgun with buckshot. It was instantaneous.

The coroner said from the detailed notes, and all the placement of the furniture, the cleaning of the house, and other signs, John had been working out his plan since Lynn was first admitted two weeks ago.

The phone from which the text message was sent, sat neatly next to the lifeless body.?No doubt, this was John’s final outreach for help.?He probably pulled the trigger no more than 10 seconds later.

John had masterfully kept his emotional anguish a secret from everyone. The only indication Chuck said was that in personal calls, John was pessimistic.?In Zoom calls with Lynn, he always appeared upbeat.?No one suspected anything.

Perhaps we should have.?Both John’s parents were dead.?His sister had taken her life years ago.?He had no living relatives. He only had Lynn. But we were too laser-focused on Lynn to realize how much losing her was going to impact him.

My family is reeling. It is one thing to have a member go through the ravages of this insidious disease.?It is another thing to not see the signs in another member that he was just as emotionally sick as she was physically.

This article is not intended to spark debates about mandating vaccines and any comments in that area will be deleted.?Rather, this is about the pressures that our society is facing right now.?The pressures of disease, economic uncertainty, availability of necessities … the challenges of fulfilling Maslow’s needs 1-3 … and how they are impacting mental health at a massive scale. This is the real pandemic.

In this country, we used to look out for each other more.?Now we are too focused on that tiny screen in our hand to notice our neighbors’ quiet anguish. ?In a world where the primary communications source has become that device in our hands, we have lost the ability of using those hands to lift our neighbors up.

So, I share my anguish, my sorrow, and my pain so that I can implore you to look out once again above that device in your hand and see the immediate world around you.?Ask your friends if they are OK.?Go knock on someone’s door if they have been a little too silent recently.?Stop texting so much and start calling more. Engage each other.

90% of human communication is nonverbal, and often, the only way to see it all, is to see it in person, directly in front of you.?Please, make sure you experience and understand the unsaid with the said. Be more alert. Be more understanding.?Be more compassionate.

As I write this, Lynn, though barely, is still alive.?While her prognosis is extremely grim, I cannot help but think how she would respond to this tragedy in the event there is a divine intervention that allows her to pull though. ?How would she react, knowing that John gave up hope too soon?

There is always hope.?There is always a better solution than this. Please. Please. Please. Look for the signs.?Help someone get the support he or she needs. ?

I pray that no one else ever again receives a text message that reads, “Call 911. Sorry.”