Let’s bring the statistic to life. His family would like that.
Irving Gross, an Air Force veteran who survived being shot down in the Korean War, died on April 22 from complications caused by COVID-19. He was married to the former Maryann Berardi for 49 years. He fished, hunted and drank beer with his buddies at the local watering hole, near his hometown of Pembroke.
His general health posed a problem near the end. Alzheimer’s disease had taken control, leaving lucid moments rare. He had pneumonia-like symptoms. His lungs filled with fluid. And he tested positive for the coronavirus two days before he died.
That’s what officially killed him. Gross’s death certificate and obituary did not mince words: He had died following “complications from COVID-19.”
That term for this fatal disease has become regular part of our conversations these days. Actually, dominating our conversations. More than 60,000 people have died in the United States; 66 of them in New Hampshire. But let’s skip the numbers this time. Let’s meet the man.
“He had so much pride for being in the Air Force and serving his country,” said Matthew Gross of Concord, one of Irving’s two sons. “It meant a lot to him.”
That’s a good place to start. The Air Force. This statistic was a hero. In the skies over North Korea 70 years ago.
Matthew, a 38-year-old social worker in Concord, told a war story he’d heard from his father. He’d been shot down during the Koran War and crashed. He was the lone survivor.
“He broke his back,” Matthew said. “He needed spinal fusion, and the recovery was one or two years and he hung on.”
Gross studied electrical engineering and later took courses at MIT. He built a life in the Suncook Valley decades ago. He and Maryann had two sons. And four grandchildren.
He was a freemason and a jokester. He had a huge vegetable garden, prompting Maryann to say, “He could have started his own vegetable farm.”
Irving laughed a lot and made others laugh. He was one of those longtime residents in one of those small American towns, the one whom everyone knew, the father who brought along his two sons on all those outdoor bonding sessions.
“He took us fishing a lot,” Matthew said. “We have great memories of that with him.”
Added Maryann, “He had his fishing buddies, and he used to joke around with the local cops, had beers with friends after a long, hot day of fishing.”
She continued: “They fished, but then they got older and they had their own medical conditions to deal with.”
Irving began forgetting things. It started about a year ago. After about six months, Maryann could no longer care for her husband by herself. He’d earned his ticket into the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton, but he had to wait for a bed to open.
Meanwhile, Irving ended up at a care facility in Milford last December. Sad, sure, but at least the world hadn’t been turned upside down yet. Family could visit, hold his hand, have a meal just a few feet away.
Remember the good old days?
“That was supposed to be temporary until he went to Tilton,” Matthew said. “That was the plan from the start.”
No one could have seen what was waiting on the horizon. As Matthew said, “You could not have dreamed that one day there would be a worldwide pandemic. Having a loved one pass is difficult enough, but it’s worse when you have to say goodbye on an iPad and that person has to die alone.”
We’ve heard that part of the story before. The saddest part, really. It’s become a national theme. Someone feels sick, tests positive and never has a close encounter with family or friends again.
That happened in this instance. The family visited Irving for their final time on March 11. They got a phone call the next day, telling them visitors couldn’t come back. The magnitude of the news did not sink in. Not right away.
“We knew they were doing it for safety reasons,” said 47-year-old David Gross of Pembroke, who works in retail. “But I never thought it would come to this. I thought I’d see him again.”
Toward the end of Irving’s stay in Milford, his lungs filled with fluid and he contracted pneumonia, certainly dangerous for an 87-year-old man.
With his health declining, Maryann chose to move him to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. There, Irving tested positive for the coronavirus for the first time. The answer came back fast, documenting the result within hours of Irving’s admittance to the hospital.
“That set me off,” Maryann said, “because I had been on the phone with (the Milford facility) and was told there had been no outbreak yet.”
From there, iPads and Zoom conferences took over. The Alzheimer’s, the fluid in his lungs, the high fever, all weakened Irving. But COVID-19 was too much to overcome.
“He was just lying there,” Maryann told me. “There were so many machines on him, we could barely see him. His lungs gave out. He didn’t last long.”
Irving lasted two days at CMC. He hadn’t been home for nearly seven months. By the time he died on April 22, his family hadn’t seen him – really seen him – in 41 days.
When the weather warms, Irving will take his rightful spot at the State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen.
People can visit him then, get closer than before.
Such is the whacky nature of a most formidable opponent. At its cruelest, it isolates, then kills, with no one nearby.
It happened to Irving Gross of Pembroke. It happened to his family.
“Everyone knew who he was in town,” Matthew said. “Everyone wanted to be around him. He lifted the spirit in any room he walked into. He was very charismatic.”
People can do that.
Statistics can not.