Requiescat In Pace, Alma

 

Requiescat In Pace, Alma

February 03, 2022

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Tuesday morning, the hospital wouldn’t let me say goodbye to my sister. Covid restrictions, they said. Only Alma’s two daughters, masked and gowned, were allowed in with their mother as she lay in a hospital bed, sedated and intubated. Then doctors and nurses removed her life-maintaining support. A short time later she died, holding her daughters’ hands.

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.

Alma was a kind, compassionate soul who took care of everyone else before herself. In her guest bedroom, there was often a pal down on her luck or friends who needed a place to stay while they got back on their feet. A tall, attractive brunette, she became stooped with the years, but her smile—the bright, open, comfortable, almost ever-present smile—remained.

Her pride and joy were her two daughters. They’ve grown into remarkable women. The elder is a technician in a Denver medical lab, the younger a teacher in a small town on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. Their mother endowed both with a stoic acceptance of life’s curves and dips and an ability to endure.

That strength has been sorely tested. The youngest lost her 15-year-old son in a car crash last September, and the sisters convened a call Sunday night with their mother’s four siblings to explain a tough decision. Alma did not want to be kept alive by machinery. Her daughters had made the hardest choice a child must make: to let a parent go.

My nieces and their three children have lost a mother and grandmother who loomed large in their lives for many wonderful years. They—and the rest of our family—have now experienced a death at the hands of a virus that has taken half again as many of our countrymen as were killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, both Gulf wars and Afghanistan combined.

I suspect my family is reacting like others who’ve faced this great loss. As we grieve, we’re also grateful for healthcare professionals who’ve fought Covid for over two years. What they’ve done, day in and day out, in confronting this lethal virus is truly heroic. More than anyone else, they have fought this relentless enemy with all their skill and energy and witnessed seemingly endless grief. If they are more exhausted than the rest of America, there’s a reason why.

We’re also grateful for scientists and pharmaceutical companies that in record time produced lifesaving vaccines and therapeutics that have kept so many families from suffering what mine went through this week.

Don’t expect political recriminations in this space, or a spate of if-onlys or should-have-dones. I heard in too many White House briefings about SARS in 2002 and 2003 all the unknowns our best medical minds acknowledged about viral pandemics. When this one began, I knew there was no playbook on the shelf that guaranteed a quick, easy victory. And none was found.

Read more at WSJ.com

copied from KarlRove.com

Thank you to Karl Rove for sharing these very beautiful words with us.  

Your sister was a wonderful person.  

Wishing all the strength in the world to you and your family from 

the ronnie republic.

My response to stupidity

𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 and the book of lies 📕

Gone but remembered, city takes time to mark passing of retired K9

 Daily Journal

Gone but remembered, city takes 

time to mark passing of retired K9

Joseph P. Smith, Vineland Daily Journal

Fri, January 28, 2022, 11:11 AM

VINELAND – The city is remembering Carlos, a German Shepherd who spent most of a decade as part of the police K9 unit before retiring in 2019.

Carlos died on Dec. 4, 2021. He had spent his retirement at the home of his longtime partner, Officer Dwight Adams.

Public Safety Director Edwin Alicea presented Adams with an “End of Watch” plaque, bearing the profile of Carlos, at a brief ceremony at the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

More: PHOTOS: Vineland police celebrate K-9 retirements

More: Suspect in fatal shooting outside South Jersey Wawa arrested in New York

“We recognize as officers how important these K9s are,” said Alicea, a retired Glassboro officer. “They (are) not only a tool for our officers. They become a partner. They become family members.”

The memorial plaque has a short verse from the Book of Isaiah, 6:8, concerning a man who asks God to find him worthy to be sent on a mission.

An End of Watch memorial plaque in honor of the recently deceased retired Vineland police K9 Carlos was given to his former partner and post-career owner Officer Dwight Adams. The dog's passing was remembered at a short ceremony at the City Council meeting Tuesday night. Jan. 25, 2022.

“These K9s risk their lives to protect our officers and our officers rely heavily on their dog’s ability to be there for them when they’re needed,” Alicea said. “They will stop at absolutely nothing to protect a handler and to do their job.”

Bred in the Netherlands, Carlos graduated the Atlantic County K9 in spring 2011 and made his first pinch in October 2012. He went on to take part in more than 658 assignments as both a patrol K9 and a narcotics detection dog.

Some career highlights included being part of a team that won the “Sonny” Burke Award for performance and dedication. He also was spotlighted in the 2014 Cops & Dogs calendar.

Vineland Public Safety Director Edwin Alicea (left) shows an End of Watch memorial plaque to Officer Dwight Adams at Tuesday night's City Council meeting. Adams former K9 partner, Carlos, died last month. The German Shepherd retired in 2019 and lived with his partner's family.

Carlos retired in September 2019. Adams remains with the K9 Unit.

Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey more than 30 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.

Have a tip? Reach out at jsmith@thedailyjournal.com. Help support local journalism with a subscription.

This article originally appeared on Vineland Daily Journal: City recalls dog that found home, police career in Vineland

copied from Yahoo news

Thank you for taking time to share this very important story.

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New Rescue Operations at The Animal and Environment Association--Bethlehem Palestine

 Thank you to Diana George Babish and all of your never ending hard work.

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عمليات إنقاذ جديدة ومستمرة.

وصلتنا هذه الحالات كبقية الحالات التي تعاني من البرد والجوع ومن حياة الشارع الصعبة،هم الآن تحت العلاج لتقوية مناعتهم وصحتهم وسيتم استضافتهم في الملجأ ومن ثم عرضهم للتبني عند التأكد من صحتهم تمامًا، يقبعون تخت العلاج حاليًا في مركز البراق للخدمات البيطرية في بيت لحم، نحن مسرورون بالتعامل مع هذا المركز إضافة لكونه قريب من الملجأ،وسوف نكون مسرورون أكثر اذا ساعدتمونا بتغطية تكاليف العلاج والتي تمثل عبئا كبيرا علينا.

تبرع من خلال الرابط التالي: https://solo.to/bethlehemshelter

New and ongoing rescue operations. We received these cases like the rest of the cases suffering from cold and hunger and from the difficult life of the street. They are now under treatment to strengthen their immunity and health. They will be hosted in the shelter and then put up for adoption when they are completely healthy. They are currently under treatment at Al-Buraq Center for Veterinary Services in Bethlehem. We We are pleased to deal with this center in addition to being close to the shelter, and we will be more pleased if you help us cover the costs of treatment, which represents a great burden on us.

https://solo.to/bethlehemshelter

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