Tatá
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In Argentina, nobody was better prepared than her to live in isolation. She didn’t have to change her routine, work remotely, or even take notice of the seclusion. In reality, for several years, her natural habitat was the inside of her apartment, which she covered from end to end using her wheelchair.
She went from the bedroom where she slept to the TV room, from there to the dining room—just like that, again and again, Monday through Sunday. She would wake up late and watch mass. Then, she would be taken to eat lunch. She napped, watched movies, and occasionally entertained guests. And so it went during the months of quarantine.
Week 1
Her first week in quarantine had come several months earlier. But on March 20, the day after mandatory lockdown for everyone in Argentina, one of her granddaughters went to live with her. She wanted to keep Tatá company for two weeks, which is how long it would last according to the official announcement. She made Tatá comfortable, turned on her television, and incorporated her into her remote work. Between her computer and her cell phone charging , Tatá had never seen so much technology and dubbed her “la chica de los cables,” or “the girl with cables.”
They weren’t alone. Chabala had joined the family over 40 years ago. First, as a domestic worker, then as a loving caretaker, on call to resolve any sort of problem, 24 hours a day. Two other women took shifts in the mornings and evenings. They were essential workers long before the government publicly recognized them as such.
Tatá would say that her body was a block of cement. She was annoyed by her immobility, but described it with her trademark sense of humor. The physical decline came much sooner than the mental one. She was aware of her limitations and that, throughout her life, there would be more and more things she wouldn’t be able to do. When concern overtook her mood, she would also say, “Do you know what it's like to not be able to do anything on your own?”
During the lockdown period, her six children organized a WhatsApp group. They called it the “Coronavirus Command” and shared it with some of the grandchildren so that someone could go visit Tatá each day between 6pm to 10pm. La chica de los cables was working on a project that required long hours of Zoom meetings. Otherwise, there wasn’t much difference to Tata’s pre-pandemic life.
Week 3
On April 1st, it was my turn to visit Tatá. It had been more than 20 days since I last saw her. When I got there, she was napping peacefully and didn’t seem to want to get up. Above her shins, she had two gauze pads wrapped around her legs like Juan Sebastián “La Brujita” Verón during his football-playing days.
Once they sat her in a chair in front of the television, she looked slightly downward and with her head resting on her left shoulder. Sometimes she got up with surprising energy and other times she seemed to be slowly fading.
That day, she didn’t feel like talking or she just wasn’t listening to me, which amounted to the same thing. Chabala told me that in the morning Tatá had watched two masses because YouTube auto-played the second one and Tatá refused to interrupt the second mass because she was convinced that it was the same one as before. When I happened to flip past Notting Hill with the remote control, she recognized Julia Roberts and said to me: “She’s done a couple of little movies.” I asked her what she wanted to watch and she told me, “A comedy.”
We watched in silence for two hours. At one point, she gave me her hand and seemed to follow the view—as she used to say—carefully. When the movie finished, I asked what she thought and she said that it had struck her as grotesque. We ate without talking too much. La chica de los cables had recommended avoiding the news reports on coronavirus, but in those days, it was impossible.
“Who’s that talking?” she asked me.
“Daniel López Rosetti, a doctor that’s on TV a lot. He’s talking about how quarantine will end on April 13,” I responded.
“April? This is going to last months.”
Week 4
On April 11, she woke up with a strange pain in her stomach. Everything seemed to point to a kidney problem. She complained for several days, but the pain would go away with a warm bag full of rice that Chabala prepared for her to press on in the afternoons. She took nine pills each day: two for hypertension, two for sleep, one to regulate her insulin, two for muscle pain, another for her stomach, and the last one for her knees, which felt like they had Coca-Cola in them, according to Tatá.
Her diagnoses were always off, in part, because her stories were more fantasy than reality, but also because she had had so many health problems that nobody could say for sure what was going on with her body.
In 1957, they removed a kidney. The operation was rough, as it was in those days, and the resulting scar was permanent. In 2001, they diagnosed her with diabetes. They had to poke her four times a day in the stomach to inject insulin and two more times in her finger to check her blood sugar. In summer 2009, too much insulin was injected and her blood sugar dropped until she fainted. Miraculously, she survived after being forced to down sugar packets and Coca-Cola. The spikes from eating desserts, chocolates, and pastries were already common. She only really had to worry when her reading was over 300.
During those same vacations, her blood pressure spiked and she had to have her pressure checked with a blood pressure monitor in the fire house. Since then, she’s had to be careful with her diet, too. “I can’t eat sweet or salty food. What do they want me to do?” she repeated.
In 2014, the doctor told her that the remaining kidney had a tumor that would kill her in three months, at most.
Week 6
At this point, deaths were measured by statistics. The number of losses no longer mattered, but rather whether there were few, many, or how the curve was progressing. Tatá had been threatening to go for a while. She repeated that becoming a widow had been the saddest thing and that she had thought she would die after a few days from sadness. She had prayed the rosary to die quickly and peacefully, but four years had already passed.
We all know we will die, but the difference is that Tatá lived with that knowledge every time she would wake up, look at herself, and realize that she was still there. This air of finiteness materialized for her when the day to day became monotonous. Her life occurred in the past tense, and a future earthly life held nothing for her. One day death stopped being a threat and became something logical and inevitable.
Week 7
As quarantine dragged on, Tatá developed a new concern: the lack of cigarettes. La chica de los cables counted the remaining bundles as if they were medication doses. The Coronavirus Command was in charge of replenishing the stock from pharmacies and stores.
During those weeks, Tatá got hooked on Franco Zeffirelli films and finished My Brilliant Friend, the series based on the Elena Ferrante book. She had good days and others where she barely spoke. La chica de los cables started to read her old letters to her and show her photos of when she was young. Despite failing to navigate many of those memories, she stood firm in the distant past. Each time it was my turn to visit her, I tried to talk about her life until her memory clicked and a light came on like the game “Cerebro mágico” (Brain Magic).
She never fit the mold of the Argentine grandmother that makes pasta and spoils her grandchildren. She wouldn’t call you on the phone, she forgot your birthday and would take a moment to recognize you. She felt she had a right to say whatever she wanted. “You look so fat,” “I forgot you were my grandchild,” or “You’re whiter than a sheet of paper,” were some of her unfiltered phrases that became family anecdotes. Her way of expressing affection was different. On April 28, she told me, “Turn off the television, I want to smoke a cigarette and talk.”
Week 8
One day in May, I showed up and she had a list of her children and grandchildren’s names. She had asked for them to be written down to remember to pray for all of them. Since she was losing her hearing, while she sat in her chair and we watched television, I made a habit of sitting in her wheelchair to be closer to her when we talked. Safety protocols aren’t deaf-friendly. I greeted her by tapping her with my elbow, but she told me I was being silly. Tatá was less afraid of coronavirus than everyone around her.
Week 10
On May 22, she turned 97. The family mobilized for this day. A collection was organized to buy gifts. Tatá had only asked for a body spray from the pharmacy, but she also got a deck chair, a toaster, and some wireless headphones like one of her granddaughters had, which gave a gamer look that contrasted with her age, white hair, and typically austere wardrobe.
She didn’t care about clothes: every day she wore thick sweaters of varying colors, long skirts, and some old cotton slippers that were replaced with plush ones, her last birthday gift.
With the cell phone of La chica de los cables, Tatá, who was having one of her best days, sent a long voice memo invitation, pausing before each word:
“Unfortunately, you can’t come because of the infamous pandemic, but there will be a bingo game that’s looking really good and I’m thinking of winning since it’s my birthday. Still, you should all give it a shot because there are good prizes. You need a telephone with Zoom. When others are talking, shut up. Otherwise, you all make my head spin. Because I’m turning almost 100 years old.”
Hours before starting, Tatá filled her card with the same numbers of black pairs that she always chose for roulette during her youth. She didn’t win either round of bingo. She let loose some profanity which will live forever on Zoom’s servers. Before going to sleep, she ate a piece of Argentine Rogel cake as if she had beaten diabetes.
Week 12
In June, after so long, Tatá finally established a routine thanks to the gifts. Each time she finished eating lunch, she went to the balcony with her new deck chair and smoked a cigarette. Sometimes, she closed her eyes and slept a few minutes while the ashes fell onto her sweater.
The headphones also let her listen to music again. She put on boleros and tangos like the old days and even remembered the lyrics to some songs. La chica de los cables recorded her as she sang a Gardel tune from her wheelchair.
Adiós muchachos, compañeros de mi vida,
Barra querida de aquellos tiempos.
Me toca a mí, hoy emprender la retirada
Debo alejarme de mi buena muchachada”.
A side effect of the headphones was that they started hurting her ear. It became swollen and the doctor told her it was helix chondritis, an inflammation that he described as very painful. She had to take antibiotics for 10 days, but she decided to take them for a month.
The peak didn’t arrive in June either and the “Coronavirus Command” had to keep going for a few more weeks. Chabala asked them to be extremely careful because she had heard that winter was the most dangerous time. Tatá lived her day to day, and at times, forgot about the outside world. The confusion of reality, generally a bad sign for the psyche, occasionally provided peace of mind.
Week 14
On June 17, Tatá woke up with a fever, high blood pressure, and tremors. She had a typical winter cold, a suspicious cough, and to top things off, worrisome knee pain. Some coronavirus symptoms had manifested and the defensive perimeter around her had seemed to have had some kind of leak—almost inevitable after three months. More couldn’t be asked of her at her 97 years of age. Nor did she want to. Death seemed to be creeping in.
Her regular doctor had stopped answering the phone. A young visiting doctor entered the scene and assumed a difficult task: the explicit request to not be hospitalized was added to Tatá’s usual imprecise diagnosis. Every time she went to the hospital, it took her a few weeks to feel like herself again. The doctor relented, asked for patience, and suggested avoiding drastic decisions.
On June 18th, at 11 o’clock in the morning, la chica de los cables shared the latest medical update: a temperature of 36.5 ºC and blood pressure at 11/5. They told her that they were looking for an at-home test kit and Tatá responded: “Do that to your grandmother.” She ate zucchini toast and didn’t have a fever for the rest of the day. A PCR test wasn’t needed and before going to sleep, she smoked a cigarette. Again, fate danced around the inevitable ending.
Week 17
When I saw her again in July, I thought that if 2020 had been a gift, the second half of the year was a long shot. Once, a cousin told me that Tatá wouldn’t die because we were all too attached to her. Suddenly, quarantine stopped being a problem and provided the necessary time for everyone in the family to accept this final stretch.
At night, she began to cry out for her mother. She once said that that was the person she missed the most. She had already spent many years without her, but the feeling was so strong that it managed to overcome the effects of her two sleeping medications. The following weeks were monotonous and carefree. The “Coronavirus Command” WhatsApp Group stopped being active on a daily basis, and became more sporadic—a few political discussions even broke out.
Week 26
In September, Tatá was excited for the return of soccer. Her journey as a Boca fan is a good synthesis of the passage of life: first on the pitch, second with her children at home, later gathering all her grandchildren because she was the only one with a club membership, one day without her husband, and the last few years with fading expressions of fervor.
When young, she would go to the stadium when it wasn’t customary for women to do so. She climbed the steps and waved to everyone around her and screamed in a way that made her much more composed husband uncomfortable. In one of her drawers, she kept a tiny, leather-lined lifetime membership card. Her love for soccer wasn’t so much the game itself, as it was a series of random quirks: she liked the goalkeeper Andrada because she said he made saves “in his sleep,” she defended Clemente Rodríguez because they shared a surname, and she hated Tévez because he never smiled.
Week 28
On September 24th, she watched the 1-0 victory over Deportivo Independiente Medellín in the Copa Libertadores with one of her children. The Coronavirus Command’s ranks had thinned as it became more and more difficult to maintain the utmost precaution with more than ten thousands cases per day. Chabala placed Tatá’s food in front of the television, but they hardly celebrated the victory. At halftime, they put on the news which reported a then-record of 13,477 cases in Argentina.
By then, the deaths were already a number and logical consequence of the day to day. Society was vulnerable in the way Tatá had become after they took out one of her kidneys, recovered from seven pregnancies, and suffered from spikes in her blood sugar and hypertension.
But how many more days could she last? Why didn’t we let her go?
Week 29
On September 28th, it was harder than usual for her to wake up. She was completely disoriented and didn’t want to leave her bed. It wasn’t anything new, but in any case, it required attention. She had high sugar, a heart rate of 116 bpm, and low blood pressure. For the first time since the June 17 incident, she had a fever. The doctor recommended an antibiotic and once again asked for patience.
At some point on September 29th, Tatá lost consciousness. Sleep became her final state. An ambulance came for Tatá. She never went home again, which she would never know, as luck would have it. Suddenly, the equation flipped: hospitalization, which was the worst part, became the only alternative, and death, which she had always managed to avoid by some sort of survival instinct, became her best option.
The end of life is typically seen as something negative, but that’s not true in every case. In extreme situations, when death approaches as part of the inertia of life and not as a sudden twist of fate, one wishes for death, that it happens without suffering and that the pain begins to fade.
The blood test they did came back positive for early infection. She didn’t find out they had taken a swab, but a few hours later, suspicions were confirmed and Tatá had coronavirus.
During the following days, she laid dying. Her breathing was slow and fading. It was like fast-forwarding through 2020 the movie, slowly coming to a close, albeit without the happiest moments she had between March and September. More than once Tatá told me that she asked herself why she was still alive. I never told her I always thought it was because she brought joy into the lives of others. Although she wasn’t at her mental or physical peak throughout the year, I’m sure that she made Chabala and la chica de los cables happy, too. She even had the courtesy to not infect them.
On October 2, Tatá, who had survived so much, said enough. Half of the “Coronavirus Command” couldn’t attend her funeral for having been in close proximity to her. Chabala, who they had never seen cry before, couldn’t attend either, but took it upon herself to cut some flowers from the balcony and arrange a bouquet. She was stuck by herself in her apartment with la chica de los cables, who was finishing up her last Zoom meetings for work.
On October 3, with just five weeks left until the end of lockdown, 196 coronavirus deaths were reported in Argentina within a 24-hour period. Tatá was one of them.
Pedro Molina is a journalist and publicist. He has worked for the magazine El Gráfico, Telefe Noticias, and is coauthor of the book Alerta Rojo - ¿A quién le importan las Inferiores?, an investigation he wrote with his brother Panqui. He also produces editorial, digital, and press content for various organizations. Currently, he works for the AVC agency.