Requiescat in pace, Alma

Her siblings and grandchildren watched the end from the hospital chapel via Zoom on a borrowed laptop, praying it was a peaceful, painless passing.

My sister is among the latest nearly 900,000 American Covid casualties. Our family participated in a wrenching drama that far too many families have suffered these past two years.

Alma Louise Rove, 65, had a hard life. Her parents divorced when she was in her early teens. She had her first child at 17, her second at 19, and she endured two unhappy marriages. She never attended college and spent decades toiling in paint and home-decorating stores filling orders, matching fabrics and wall colors, and managing the shop.

My sister was tough and resilient but a hot mess, too. She was plagued by recurring health challenges—those “pre-existing conditions” that forecast rough sledding for any Covid patient—including breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s syndrome, thyroid and heart problems, and other ailments too numerous to catalog and for vaccinations to overcome.