A Eulogy from the Pandemic

The pandemic has been harsh and unrelenting, visiting cruelty upon all of us in shared as well as unique and unexpected ways. Many people have lost their jobs; almost everyone has lost their sense of normalcy. Whether it was wearing masks, shifting from meeting rooms to video conferences, seeking creative ways to keep our children safe while continuing their educations, or limiting conversations with friends and family to texts and phone calls, almost no one has escaped dramatic life adjustments. It’s been especially cruel to those of us that have lost loved ones during this time.

My mother passed away on Saturday, Oct 2nd, 2021. It wasn’t from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. My mom understood science and got the vaccine as soon as she could. She devoutly wore her mask. This is potentially the result of her having a son in the sciences, but it’s probably the other way around and more to do with her being unusually intelligent and me sharing some of that gene pool.?But because of the pandemic, I haven’t seen her since the last week of February of 2020. My father passed away that week.

I’ve gone through two pandemic deaths now; both of my parents, the two people that were closest to me for the majority of my life. My father’s death was a little easier. He suffered from dementia for many years, so we could mentally prepare for the inevitable, but death is always hard regardless of whether we see it coming.

I feel guilty about both of my parents’ deaths. And I think most people that live far away from their parents feel this sort of guilt.?We see them less often, and so their deaths are followed by a keen awareness of things we could have, should have, would have said, or done, before it was too late. I certainly wasn’t the perfect son. I could have called more; I should have told them I loved them more; and I would have visited more if it wasn’t for 100 different excuses I’ve made for myself over the last two decades.

But despite my failings, the pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. My dad’s death was a whirlwind, not just because he died, but he died at a time when I wasn’t mentally present. I haven’t properly reflected on the last year because, like so many in healthcare, I was responding to the pandemic in the best way I knew how, and that meant burying my head in work and using every skill I had to try to make a difference. My father’s funeral was especially challenging because my journey with SARS-CoV-2 began in the first weeks of 2020.

The Centers for Disease Control released a description of their SARS-CoV-2 assay at the end of January. As I read through what was published, it became clear to me that scaling it to a level capable of addressing the snowballing pandemic would be problematic. The team I led at Labcorp agreed, and we set about building a test platform that could better meet the oncoming challenge. But a big part of the final steps of the development process involved sourcing SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA. The Food and Drug Administration would not allow assay development to be done on anything but native virus.?It was a waiting game. And unfortunately for me, at the end of February it was a game of phone tag with various institutions that may or may not have been able to send the virus. So, while I was burying my dad, I had a cell phone glued to my hand waiting for the next call about who might finally be able to provide the material we needed.

My mom was generous about my absences during my father’s funeral, and whenever she saw my phone light up, she told me to take it because, “the work you’re doing is important.”

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My parents grew up in the north-west suburbs of Chicago. My mother was adopted, and my dad was the son of first-generation German immigrants. They first met at a bar in Des Plaines where my mom gave my dad a fake number. They loved telling this story. But eventually, officially, met at a friend’s wedding and they lived happily ever after, or at least until we arrived. My dad stopped riding his Harley after my sister was born. I’m the baby.

My sister and I had a decidedly middle-class, midwestern, upbringing in Schaumburg. I can count the number of vacations we had on one hand, but mom and dad always found ways to get away from the house for a few weekends during the summer. It may have only meant going to the “nice” hotel a few miles from home, but it was good to get away. When you’re a kid, sometimes all it takes to make a weekend special is having a swimming pool and a vending machine filled with all the food your parents never let you eat.

My dad learned a trade and worked as a machinist for a company in Hoffman Estates that made “punches” for pharmaceuticals. His favorite was the die he made for the Looney Tunes Character Yosemite Sam. Yes, he helped mint millions of Looney Tunes vitamins. Which basically made him my hero. He spent nearly 40 years at that company until he could no longer work due to advancing neurological problems. He was later diagnosed with dementia 2 years before retirement.

My dad was a mechanical genius. Even though he didn’t have formal training, he could fix almost anything, or at least he tried to. I certainly inherited that trait from him; the trying part, if not always the genius part. He taught me how to fish, how to mow the lawn, and most importantly he taught me how to relax. My dad never seemed to stress about anything. I have to assume the stress was there, at least sometimes, and that he hid it from us well. He would always tell me to remember that life is short, and we need to enjoy it. “Work will always be there tomorrow. Do something you love to take your mind off it. Go fishing, go for a walk, whatever it takes.” He took his own advice probably no more often than I do, yet the philosophy has always stuck with me, and I encourage the people who work for me to embrace it.

My mom was an English major. She graduated from Illinois State University but never got to formally use her degree. She was a stay-at-home mom raising two children and that was probably a supreme waste of her intellect, but I thank her for it, and I hope that I can somehow make up for that sacrifice in my lifetime. After my sister and I got to middle school, my mom went back to work to help save up for us to go to college. She worked as a secretary at a computer training company. This was great because I took full advantage of sitting in on free computer classes. I learned how to program my first webpage in Microsoft Front Page. I had my first course in Adobe Photoshop at the age of 12. This training might seem insignificant, but it started me down a path of spending every Christmas break learning a new piece of software or a new programming language. Those computer skills paid off, literally, and I spent many years in high school, college, and graduate school moonlighting as a web developer.

I’ve used what I learned programming websites throughout my career as a scientist, with that work culminating in the development of a social network for the sciences, a laboratory information management system, and more recently, a dashboard for tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants across the country. None of my accomplishments would have been remotely possible if my parents hadn’t been obsessively supportive of practically everything I wanted to do. I owe so much of where I am today to my dad’s genius and my mom’s intelligence.

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Three days after we buried my father, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was delivered by courier. The test we developed was the first to become commercially available in the US. We received the FDA’s first Emergency Use Authorization for a commercial lab test for SARS-CoV-2, as well as a veritable laundry list of other firsts for the diagnostic industry in the following months. Our product has now been used to test tens of millions of Americans. While my team built a scalable system, many other pieces needed to fall into place for it to be deployed nationwide, and those pieces were dependent on the expertise of other teams. Samples had to reach labs in a timely fashion; critical reagents had to be made and delivered, and lab personnel trained. Above all, the entire complex web of these processes had to be perfectly orchestrated, and all of this is work that continues in earnest today, because the pandemic isn’t letting up on us just yet. I take immense pride in having played a small part in the successes we’ve had addressing the pandemic. I know my mom was proud of this work, and dad would have been, too, had he lived to see it.

Soon after my father’s death, mom had an accident while at the grocery store that prevented her from being able to walk easily, and I’m grateful to my sister for stepping up to become our mother’s primary caregiver. Over the following months I spoke to my mom more frequently, though certainly less often than I should have. We always think we have more time until we don’t.

My mom’s health became progressively worse. While she remained mentally sharp, her body was failing her. More accidents would follow, leading to more hospital stays, each ending with her worse off than when she had arrived. We spoke many times about getting her full-time professional care or transferring her to a facility, but she wasn’t having any of it. My sister remained her primary caregiver until her passing. I’m glad she was able to leave this earth on her own terms, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

In recent months, the politics of the pandemic response began to metastasize into my job, and certain considerations within the company led me increasingly to think about leaving. My many fond memories there and the chance to work with some of the brightest people I’ve known notwithstanding, it became more and more clear it was time to move on. My conversations with my mom were instrumental in helping me reach that very hard decision, and once again I thank her for her wisdom as I settle into a new role at a different company.

If you are as fortunate as I am, your parents have always been there to provide advice and at a certain point in your life that advice transitions from advice you don’t want to hear to advice that you do. My mom was a good sounding board.?She and I were a lot alike, we thought the same way, we’re exquisitely stubborn, and had the same dry sense of humor. She challenged me to think about things from a different perspective.?I loved that about her and it’s one of the many things I’m going to miss. Because of this, I would talk to her about what I was struggling with, and the decision to leave my job was no different. I’m self-aware enough to know I can get tunnel vision and being forced to view things from a different perspective is an opportunity for growth. But I think this time she thought things were different, too.

“Brian, you need to do what you know you’re good at; not what other people tell you you’re good at.”

“Thanks, mom, I will.”

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The last time I spoke to my mom was on Friday September 24th. She seemed in good spirits and was complaining that they were going to kick her out of the hospital. She really didn’t want to have to go back into rehab and had hoped to stay at the hospital because they were doing such a good job taking care of her. I told her I loved her, thinking there’d be more chances in the future. Unfortunately, her condition was to get much worse, quickly. I’m thankful my sister was there with her, and that my mom had a team she was happy with, caring for her in her final days.

We buried my mom on October 7, 2021, 5 days before my 39th birthday. It was a mild, “chance of showers,” kind of day that is typical of this time of year in the midwest. Sometimes I forget how beautiful Illinois is in the fall with the leaves changing and the squirrels getting fat on acorns before the oppressive subzero temperatures of January and February hit. The trees had just started to show their fall hues with red and yellow bits bursting out from their mostly green neighbors. I thanked mom for the timing.

My sister and I decided that with the ongoing pandemic, it probably wasn’t a good idea to have an indoor wake or a service. While the case rate of the 4th wave of SARS-CoV-2 was falling, and Chicago had done a good job of mitigating the virus with lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine programs, CDC released new guidelines about boosters and waning immunity and the last thing either of us wanted to do was risk anyone getting infected at our mom’s funeral. We know she would have agreed. My mom understood science.

We didn’t want to deprive anyone of the grieving process, so we landed on a compromise and decided to do a small service at the grave site; something in-between a full service and a burial ceremony. We called family members and friends, made posts on social media, encouraged anyone that wanted to, to come to the funeral home and join us for the procession to the cemetery. My sister captured how we both felt in her social media posts, “Since we are not having an actual wake, at least we can give her a long procession and the love she deserves,” and no less than 20 cars joined the line, which I could hear my mom say was, “pretty good for the middle of the afternoon on a cloudy Thursday.” Thankfully, people were home, which is maybe one small departure from the cruelty of this pandemic.

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My family’s story isn’t unique, or remarkable. Many have suffered heartbreak and trauma over the last year and a half. I can’t help but wonder, if we could all take a step back from the toxicity of television and social media, and instead spend more time listening to one another, whether we might accelerate the healing process. Just a small increase in our consideration for what others are going through might begin to put the cruelty of the pandemic behind us, while at the same time fostering kindness in the communities on which we all depend.

So, with that in mind, and because you've taken the time to read my story, I ask you to find the time to tell yours.

That's what mom would have wanted.

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In loving memory of Lois Dorothy Krueger and Walter Richard Krueger