Say their names : Berta Kaplan Solla

My mother-in-law Berta Kaplan Solla died the night of June 26, 2020.

In her assisted living home in Buenos Aires 40 seniors tested CVID-19 positive. She also tested CVID-19 positive, but asymptomatic, and was immediately moved to a hospital in Buenos Aires for observation. Technically, the cause of death was probably cardiac failure. She was 95, pretty much bedridden by old-age, but clear-headed to the end, and the morning before her death she was expecting a group phone call with two of her sons and her daughter. There was some technical snafu, and it did not happen.

So it was kind of death that was sudden and perhaps welcome, after a long and eventful life. Her children are at peace with it, but, as we all know, that kind of loss takes years to work through. If ever.

Berta that American  friends remember from many years ago, when she was still coming on her annual visits was a friskier, chain-smoking and excitable Berta.

In Chicago (2003)

In Buenos Aires, with her grandchildren (2005)

Working out the mother-daughter relationship kinks (2010)

Say their names : Vicki Greco

Vicki, mother of my gentle and sweet colleague Ed Greco is dead, after 3 weeks battle, a victim of US government's inaptly handled pandemic. She was 62, active, and in perfect health. She worked as a nurse here in Atlanta screening folks that walked into her clinic. Ed had to remove her off life support after she fought with COVID-19 for almost four weeks. It completely destroyed her healthy lungs. In one of her last conversations with Ed she complained that people wouldn't put on a mask or would lie about their symptoms when they walked into the clinic. "Be really careful everyone and don't trust leadership to make the right decision for you personally" says Ed, who is quietly very very angry.

Ed's tribute to his mother:

Victoria Greco, age 62, passed away June 25th 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia after battling COVID-19 for three weeks. Vicki was born into a large Italian-American family in Passaic, NJ just months before she and her extended family relocated to Orlando, Florida. She grew up surrounded by siblings and cousins with grandparents just two houses away. She could be quiet and unassuming just as easily as she could be fierce and indomitable, a contradiction in character that earned her the nickname “rooster”. Vicki had a passion for new adventure and learning. She loved to read and her house is filled with an eclectic collection of books, bottles, and maps. She loved to fish in the surf at dawn, ride motorcycles through the misty mountains and small towns of Appalachia, and explore the ancient paths of our National Parks with her husband. She was the type of person you could call and invite on a trip, exotic or mundane, and the answer would always be an enthusiastic yes!

Vicki lived a life in voluntary service to the well-being of others, often caring for and sheltering the sick and destitute in her home. This was a kindness she and her husband also extended to nature. At home, Vicki would often be found tending to the native plants and pollinators in her yard while her adopted dogs slept lazily nearby. When she turned 50, she realized a lifelong desire to work in medicine and enrolled in nursing school. After graduating, she moved to Atlanta to help raise her granddaughters and began a second career in pediatrics. Her white hair, brown eyes, and silly scrubs brought smiles to many children and their families.

At the core of Vicki was a love for family. Making Christmas cookies with her grandmother, Sunday dinners at her Dad’s, cooking holiday meals with her sisters, sun kissed at the beach with her husband and granddaughters, she was happiest when she was surrounded by those she loved. For those who loved her, she was an unbreakable rock that could shoulder any burden you placed at her feet with grace. Survivors include her husband, Richard Hooker; son and daughter in-law Edwin and K. Elizabeth Greco, mother, Carole Bertone; father and stepmother, Anthony and Sallie Greco; brother, Salvatore Greco; sister, Elizabeth Kulow, sister, Karen Kania; sister, Janice Manley; granddaughters: Madeline, Miranda and Margaret Greco. She was preceded in death by her son, Anthony Hooker. In lieu of flowers, please watch a sunrise, jump feet first into a cold Florida spring, and wear a mask in public.

Do listen to the May 29th NY Times -The Daily "One Hundred Thousand Lives" podcast, commemorating the first 100,000 US victims of the Trump pandemic.

About Ed: storycollider.org Marriage stories about making it work (July 1, 2019)

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Two nights ago Rayshard Brooks was killed by a Georgia policeman Garrett Rolfe for the crime of sleeping over a hangover in his car. While black. After 40 minutes of polite banter they killed him. Witnesses claimed officers “put on plastic gloves and picked up their shell casings after they killed [Brooks] before rending aid.” And in watching video of the incident, the legal team “counted 2 minutes and 16 seconds before [officers] even checked [Brooks’s] pulse.”

They had came for us. Already. And we did not speak out. Follow my Scout Schultz thread.



And did I mention how important it is to have independent journalism? Were it not for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, all news would be controlled by the State of Georgia, be it through Georgia Tech administration or Georgia State police, and we would have never even known that a student in a moment of mental crisis was killed by police in front of his dorm, to the horror of students watching the killing through dorm windows.

First walk outside

For the first time I exited on foot and walked 5 blocks to CVS to pickup an urgent medication. Glorious day.

2/3 people wear masks. The COVID-19 trends are all downward. The Stay at Home order for Illinois has been lifted and the City of Chicago has entered a new phase: Cautiously Reopen.