Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Vernise There­sa By­er-Lodge was Vic­tim Num­ber 4.

The day af­ter she died from the coro­n­avirus, her chil­dren, Tri­cia and Car­lyle, col­lect­ed the death cer­tifi­cate of their 65-year-old moth­er and the cre­ma­tion li­cense from po­lice.

They rushed home, got a few min­utes rest, then went to the cre­ma­tion. On­ly two fam­i­ly mem­bers could be present. They were not al­lowed to see their moth­er’s body. They were not even al­lowed to touch the cof­fin. Flow­ers they brought to put next to her were placed there by peo­ple in haz­mat suits.

COVID-19 has claimed eight live so far in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In all, 114 cit­i­zens have been in­fect­ed from the virus, which has roiled so­ci­eties across the globe.

Lo­cal au­thor­i­ties have of­fered a few de­tails about vic­tims. Guardian Me­dia got an in­side look in­to the Lodge’s case from her four chil­dren who shared their trag­ic sto­ry

Her loved ones said she was a self­less, car­ing and God-fear­ing woman with un­wa­ver­ing faith.

“Mom­my had three things: God, love, and for­give­ness. She nev­er said it was her mot­to, but she lived it,” her son, Car­lyle, re­called.

To him and his three sib­lings, Tri­cia, Col­in, and Kalisha, their moth­er was al­so a friend.

Many were the times spent to­geth­er in the pa­tio of their fam­i­ly home, just talk­ing. From pi­cong to pol­i­tics to church, the sub­jects were wide-reach­ing, last­ing well in­to the night.

On oc­ca­sion, they even talked about life and death. Lit­tle did they know that one con­ver­sa­tion, one de­ci­sion, would end up be­ing, quite like­ly, the dif­fer­ence be­tween the two.

For her 65th birth­day on March 14, Lodge went on a cruise across the Caribbean Sea.

“She has al­ways want­ed to go on a cruise. She talked about it. She dreamt about it,” said her daugh­ter Tri­cia.

As part of a re­tiree group, Vernise trav­elled every oth­er year, but this trip was par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial to her.

Aware of the po­ten­tial risks the fam­i­ly dis­cussed whether she should still go, or not.

“It wasn’t some­thing easy for us. The thing is, re­mem­ber, that it didn’t hit Trinidad as hard as yet. Even­tu­al­ly, we were like, you know what? Go ahead. It so hap­pened, of course, that this whole COVID-19 came, but re­al­i­ty is, it was a tough de­ci­sion telling her go,” Tri­cia said.

Dri­ving that de­ci­sion was an in­sis­tence by Car­ni­val Cruise Line, own­ers of the Cos­ta Favolosa ship, that it would not pro­vide a re­fund to pas­sen­gers who can­celled their trip.

Seek­ing to take as many pre­cau­tions as pos­si­ble, the re­tiree group’s mem­bers did med­ical check­ups be­fore de­part­ing. They al­so took ex­tra med­ica­tion in an ef­fort to boost up their im­mune sys­tems.

On March 6, Lodge left T&T for Mar­tinique. Be­fore leav­ing her home, as she al­ways did, she told her chil­dren she loved them and kissed her grand­chil­dren good­bye while they slept.

Her son, Car­lyle, dropped her to the air­port. On the way there, they struck up a con­ver­sa­tion.

“She asked me, she said, ‘Be hon­est with me. You don’t think I should go on the cruise?’ Now, at that point, I was re­al­ly feel­ing I tell her no, but I knew she was ex­cit­ed and she had nev­er been on a cruise, so I say, ‘You should go.’ But deep down in­side, I didn’t want her to, “ he re­called.

He thought to him­self, if it’s fate, it’s fate.

Costa Favolosa

The Cos­ta Favolosa

Launched in 2010, and with a ca­pac­i­ty of 3,780 pas­sen­gers, the Cos­ta Favolosa is part of the fleet of Cos­ta Crociere, a sub­sidiary of Car­ni­val Cruise Lines.

Of­fer­ing fine din­ing, bars, shops, and just about any­thing some­one on board could need, it is es­sen­tial­ly a city at sea. At the be­gin­ning of Lodge’s trip, it was every­thing she dreamt of.

She lept her chil­dren up to date via What­sApp and sent them pic­tures of her ad­ven­tures.

Things did not re­main pic­ture-per­fect for long, how­ev­er.

On March 13, the day be­fore Lodge’s birth­day, pas­sen­gers found out there were at least two pos­i­tive cas­es of COVID-19 aboard the cruise. The two con­firmed cas­es were es­cort­ed off and all oth­er pas­sen­gers were told to iso­late them­selves in their rooms.

Med­ical pro­fes­sion­als test­ed all the pas­sen­gers and the T&T na­tions in Lodge’s group all test­ed neg­a­tive.

How­ev­er, there was a prob­lem--- no coun­try was will­ing to al­low the Cos­ta Favolosa to dock.

“Stuff start­ed to get worse. They were un­able to dock in Mar­tinique. Then they weren’t al­lowed to dock in Sint Mar­tin. Ba­si­cal­ly, they were just cir­cling the sea, “ Tri­cia said.

Miles away, Lodge’s chil­dren could do noth­ing but pray and hope.

“It was the most tor­ment­ing thing we went through as a fam­i­ly. Just know­ing you can­not get to her. You felt help­less. Be­cause, at this point in time, no­body could have helped, “ Tri­cia said as tears filled her eyes.

Lodge’s childen didn’t sleep for days. The pa­tio of their Care­nage house where they used to con­verse with their moth­er be­came a chapel. There, they prayed to­geth­er for their moth­er’s safe re­turn.

Tri­cia said: “You know they talk­ing to you, and you are hear­ing the dra­ma so you could hear the de­pres­sion in their voice be­cause they want to come home

“Every­body would have their mo­ments of feel­ing like this is just crazy. This is not hap­pen­ing.”

Their prayers were an­swered when the Guade­loupe gov­ern­ment per­mit­ted the Cos­ta Favolosa to dock, al­low­ing pas­sen­gers with con­firmed flights to leave. How­ev­er, the T&T na­tion­als had flights booked out of Mar­tinique which had de­nied the ship en­try the day be­fore.

While arrange­ments were be­ing made be­tween the gov­ern­ments of both coun­tries, the 75 T&T na­tion­als re­mained on board the ship. For one day, they were the on­ly peo­ple on the Cos­ta Favolosa.

Even­tu­al­ly, ac­cord­ing to the Lodge fam­i­ly, the Favolosa’s own­ers in­ter­vened amd char­tered a flight back to Trinidad.

“The own­ers of the Cos­ta Favolosa paid for ever­body to come back home, so they han­dled them for the flight back. The gov­ern­ment gave them the clear­ance to come back home, “ Tri­cia said.

The fam­i­ly got con­fir­ma­tion that their moth­er would re­turn on a March 18 flight. The flight touched down at Pi­ar­co, short­ly be­fore noon. Lodge was one of 68 na­tion­als on­board.

Des­per­ate­ly hop­ing to see his moth­er, Car­lyle drove up to the air­port but was un­able to see her. Straight off the plane, the na­tion­als were es­cort­ed in­to ve­hi­cles and tak­en to a quar­an­tine site, Camp Ba­lan­dra.

“It was a sense of re­lief. We knew that she would have to go through that quar­an­tine process, and we were hop­ing it would have just been that, and she would come back home, “ Car­lyle said.

Ba­lan­dra to Cou­va

Ba­lan­dra of­fered a much-need­ed sense of com­fort for Lodge, ac­cord­ing to her chil­dren.

“I re­mem­ber Mom say­ing the fresh breeze was ther­a­peu­tic. But, she did say the so­cial dis­tanc­ing prac­tices were not al­ways fol­lowed,” Tri­cia re­called.

On Thurs­day, the day af­ter their ar­rival, every­one was test­ed for COVID-19 and told they would have re­sults by the Sun­day.

Just af­ter 11 pm, on Sat­ur­day, 40 of the pa­tients were wok­en up from their beds, then washed with wa­ter out­side of the build­ing.

Lodge and the 39 oth­ers had been hear­ing ru­mours they had all test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus but had not been of­fi­cial­ly in­formed.

Even­tu­al­ly, they were placed in­to bus­es and tak­en to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

“It was heart­break­ing. It was a lot of mixed emo­tions be­cause it was all over the place. One mo­ment you are feel­ing an­gry. The next mo­ment you are feel­ing sad, “ said Kalisha.

Lodge’s health soon took a turn for the worse. She had no pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions, apart from mild hy­per­ten­sion.

On Mon­day, she was placed on a ven­ti­la­tor. That night, her chil­dren heard her voice for the last time.

“While she was on oxy­gen she want­ed to call us and her room­mate was re­peat­ing every­thing she was say­ing to us and then she came off the oxy­gen quick­ly and said she loved us, that she loved every­one,” Tri­cia said.

The fol­low­ing day, Lodge col­lapsed and was tak­en to the In­ten­sive Care Unit.

That af­ter­noon, Lodge’s body start­ed shut­ting down and just af­ter 8 pm, the call her chil­dren had all feared the most came.

She didn’t feel a thing. She did not suf­fer, the doc­tor told them.

Just like they had done every night since they first heard their moth­er was strand­ed on the Cos­ta Favolosa, the fam­i­ly was on the pa­tio pray­ing for a mir­a­cle. Every­one stopped pray­ing when Tri­cia got the call, Car­lyle re­mem­bered.

He knew what had hap­pened based on the ex­pres­sion on his broth­er’s face. It’s an ex­pres­sion he had seen 22 years ear­li­er when their fa­ther drowned on a fam­i­ly trip. His body was not found un­til days lat­er.

When­ev­er the fam­i­ly had spo­ken about death, Lodge, a staunch Catholic, had made it clear she want­ed to be buried. It was not pos­si­ble for her to have that wish, how­ev­er.

The day af­ter she died, Vernise There­sa By­er-Lodge was laid to rest.

A life of pur­pose

When she lost her hus­band, Car­lyle Lodge Sr, Lodge strug­gled im­mense­ly with the loss. Then one day she had an awak­en­ing and ded­i­cat­ed her life to God.

“A lot, a lot of peo­ple that I didn’t even know my moth­er im­pact­ed so much, called me in a state of shock. When they told me about their sto­ry of how mom­my told them to come to church and changed their lives, I didn’t know she played such a big role in peo­ple’s lives. I think that is a big part of us be­ing com­fort­ed, “ Tri­cia said.

Lodge was a mem­ber of the So­ci­ety of St.Vin­cent de Paul, a re­li­gious in­struc­tor at Point Cumana Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, a eu­charis­tic min­is­ter, and First­Com­mu­nion teacher.

Not a sin­gle day has gone by with­out vis­i­tors shar­ing their mem­o­ries of Lodge with her fam­i­ly.

For­give­ness

While the Lodge fam­i­ly was go­ing through their be­reave­ment, there were peo­ple, on so­cial me­dia, fierce­ly crit­i­ciz­ing the na­tion­als who went on the Cos­ta Favolosa cruise.

“It felt in­hu­mane. In­hu­mane. It was so de­mor­al­iz­ing. They were just de­grad­ing. I mean it’s like, you don’t know how our fam­i­ly is feel­ing,” Tri­cia said.

“Yes, peo­ple went on the cruise and the de­ci­sion was wrong, but you have to re­mem­ber that these peo­ple be­longed to fam­i­lies. With COVID-19, no­body is in­vin­ci­ble.”

While the fam­i­ly has some is­sues with the treat­ment their moth­er re­ceived at the hos­pi­tal, they ac­knowl­edge that many of the doc­tors and nurs­es, as well as the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer and Health Min­is­ter are do­ing their best.

Af­ter all the Lodge Fam­i­ly has been through in the last six weeks, they want the coun­try to un­der­stand one thing--- that the key to de­feat­ing this dead­ly virus rests in our hearts.

“Just bring some hu­man­i­ty back. It’s not about pol­i­tics. It’s not about pow­er or sta­tus. Just bring hu­man­i­ty back.

“COVID-19 is not judg­ing any­one. It is not pick­ing or choos­ing. Who would have thought our moth­er would have gone like this?”