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Willie Lanzisera, right, and his wife Denise, with their backs to the camera, join their daughter, Nicole Lanza, and grandchildren Thomas, 8, and Anita, 6, for dinner at their New York home , on March 9, 2022. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
Ida Adams never imagined her life would be like this at 62 years old.
Her plan was to continue working as a housekeeper at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore until she was 65. After she retired, she and her husband, Andre, also 62, planned to travel a bit “grab our things and go wherever we wanted.” .
I didn’t expect to have to walk a seventh grade girl to school every day of the week. But in January 2021, Ida Adams’ daughter, Kimya Lomax, died of COVID-19 at age 43, following spending three weeks alone in a hospital with no visitors. She left behind a minor daughter.
Suddenly the young woman, Kimiya, who is now 13 years old, was accompanying her grandmother to the funeral home to choose a white coffin. “He wanted me to make some decision regarding her mother leaving,” Adams said.
In December, a coalition called the COVID Collaborative estimated that roughly 167,000 American children like Kimiya had lost a parent or guardian to the pandemic, and in communities of color the rates were much higher. More recently, researchers at Imperial College London estimated the number of children who had lost one or both parents to be almost 200,000.
Grandparents have always been the first line of defense when tragedies like this occur. The nonprofit Generations United reports that before the pandemic, 2.6 million American children lived in “grandparent families,” being raised by relatives for reasons ranging from military service and incarceration to deaths from substance abuse, other illnesses, or accidents. In addition, many grandparents provide other support—child care, transportation, financial help—when a parent dies.
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Denise Lanzisera with her granddaughter Anita Lanza, 6, at their home in New York on March 9, 2022. By one estimate, nearly 200,000 children in the United States have lost one or both parents to the pandemic. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
In 2017, Lomax and her daughter had moved into the Adams’ house in Baltimore during a period of unemployment and health problems. She quickly regained control of her diabetes and took care of her daughter’s day-to-day. But she was gone now.
Kimiya asked to continue living with her grandparents; her father, who lives near her, agreed that it would be the least disruptive arrangement. Ida Adams was awarded temporary legal custody.
Such an abrupt change of roles can stress both generations. Children are destabilized by loss, and “grandparents’ lives are suddenly not what they expected when they retire,” said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United. “Your dreams are kept in the drawer.”
Adams asked for early retirement, realizing that due to his work schedule, Kimiya was spending too much time alone at home. “The dynamics have changed,” Adams said. “I was the granny, the spoiler. Now I have to discipline and say, ‘Kimiya, do your homework. Kimiya, turn off the TV.’ Now I am the guardian, I am everything.”
Instead of traveling, as she expected, she is raising a teenager in a world that feels very different from the experience she had as a mother. “When I raised my daughter, there was no internet, there were no social networks, there were no cell phones,” she said.
“People tell me it’s a blessing” to care for their granddaughter, she said. “Yes it is. But it is also work, a responsibility that I must assume and for which I was not prepared”.
They manage, with the help of other family members, a school counselor Kimiya goes to every week, and a grief support group at Roberta’s House, a local family grief center.
“It’s the light in my darkness,” Adams said of her granddaughter. “Now we need each other.”
Children receiving therapy at Roberta’s House have lost family members to accidents, illness and other causes. Now the loss from COVID is also affecting a generation of young people.
“Their parents went to the hospital, and that was the last time they were seen,” said Lane Pease Hendricks, director of programs for Kate’s Club of Atlanta, an organization for bereaved children. “Some families have had to delay funerals until very recently, and that lack of ritual leaves families bereft.”
For children and grandparents alike, COVID also becomes an inescapable topic, explained Carolyn Taverner, co-founder of Emma’s Place, a Staten Island bereavement center for children and families. “It’s always in the news; only talk regarding it. There is never a time when something doesn’t remind you of your loss.”
‘With them all his life’
The New York Times spoke with grandparents across the country regarding how their children’s deaths had upended relationships and responsibilities with their grandchildren.
In July, four members of Jocelyn Rivers’ family contracted COVID-19 and went to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta; first, Rivers’s daughter, Valencia, who complained of not being able to breathe, then Rivers, another daughter, and her son-in-law.
Three family members recovered. But Valencia Rivers, a 35-year-old woman who had previously been in good health, called her mother to say “I love you” before entering the intensive care unit. She died following two weeks of hospitalization, leaving behind two young children.
Jocelyn Rivers didn’t hesitate to take care of them, even though she herself needed supplemental oxygen for weeks following her release from the hospital. Valencia Rivers, a single mother, had moved into her mother’s house in the city when she was pregnant with her first child, so the three generations had always lived together.
“I have been with them all their lives. She entrusted them to me,” Jocelyn Rivers said of the children. “My granddaughter called me ‘mama’ until before she was 3 years old”.
Rivers is 60 years old and his knees sometimes ache from arthritis. He now drives 6-year-old JaCorey and 8-year-old JaKyrea to and from school. He takes them to Little League practice and dance class, takes care of the house and supervises their homework.
“They keep me going,” he confessed. “It would be more difficult if I didn’t have them with me and I was thinking regarding my daughter all the time.”
A school counselor referred the children and their grandmother to Kate’s Club, where they learned to talk regarding their grief. “When they feel down, they say, ‘Grandma, I miss my mom today,’” says Rivers. “I tell them, ‘Do you want to talk regarding it?’ Sometimes they say, ‘No, I just want you to hug me.’” They also comfort her when she feels bad.
‘It is a lot of work’
Carol and Angelo Conti, both 74, were veteran grandparents. Carol Conti had retired earlier to become a “professional grandmother,” caring for her four grandchildren at her Staten Island home until they were old enough to go to school.
As of 2020, the couple was still caring for their youngest, Mia, whose mother, Angela, commuted from Jersey City every day, dropping Mia off with her parents on her way to work. The arrangement worked well for them, but “we longed for peace and quiet and a house that wasn’t full of toys,” recalled Carol Conti. The couple had considered taking road trips to Florida, California and even Alaska.
But the Contis’ lives were turned upside down when Angela’s husband, Jason Scala, 47, died of COVID-19 in April 2020 following six weeks in hospital. They all agreed that they should move in together. So, in August, following making room in the house where Angela had grown up, the Contis took her back under their roof, along with Sofia, now 8 years old; Mia, who is now 6; and her dog.
Today, Angelo Conti gets up at 6:30 in the morning to prepare breakfast for the girls. He and his wife take them to the doctor and dentist, to Girl Scout meetings, and to soccer and softball games. “The food bill is huge,” said Carol Conti.
The Conti grandparents value the close family bond they have, but they are also aware of the passing of the years. Your road trip plans have been shelved, perhaps forever; Angelo Conti doubts that they will want to drive to the Grand Canyon when they are 80 years old. They have less time to spend with their older grandchildren, who live nearby.
“I am eternally grateful to my parents and I am well aware that they are sacrificing what they wanted to do for the needs of the children,” said Angela Conti, 45, a lawyer who plans to move her family back into a home of their own. “They don’t complain, but it’s a lot of work.”
Carol Conti sometimes wakes up worried regarding her daughter and the girls. When Carol Conti had to have surgery on her knee, Sofía became very nervous. Carol Conti insisted on calling from the hospital to reassure her that she wasn’t like the time Dad went to the hospital; Nonna would be home soon.
‘We had to help her navigate this new path’
At least once a week, Willie and Denise Lanzisera would drive half an hour to spend an followingnoon with their daughter’s family, who also lives on Staten Island.
The Lanziseras had cared for children before the pandemic, but once their grandchildren entered preschool, it was enough for them to eat dinner together, sleep over from time to time, get together on holidays and enjoy family vacations. on the Jersey Shore.
“We were definitely part of their lives,” recalls Denise Lanzisera. “But not like now.”
Now her daughter Nicole Lanza is raising Thomas, 8, and Anita, 6, alone. In October 2020, her husband, Thomas Lanza, 41, a Special Education teacher at a school, died of COVID-19 with amazing speed; he did not survive the ambulance ride to the hospital.
At first, the Lanziseras practically moved in with their daughter, spending days and nights with Nicole Lanza and the children. “We mightn’t leave her,” Denise Lanzisera said. “We had to help her navigate this new path as a single mother.”
Denise Lanzisera, 62, still spends one night a week at the Lanzas’ apartment, helping with the kids and housework. Nicole Lanza, the children and the dog also go to their parents’ house during the long weekends. “He comes in, makes himself a cup of tea and can relax for a day or two,” said Willie Lanzisera, 64.
When deciding how much time and energy they might contribute, “we set some limits,” said Denise Lanzisera. “We are getting older and it feels. Sometimes we need time for ourselves.”
However, in general, they are at the foot of the canyon. “This caring for children,” said Willie Lanzisera, “is a lifelong job.”