This day in March 2020, during the first confinement, Nathalie saw her parents leave in two different ambulances on the same day. His mother will survive, but not his father, who was suddenly killed by Covid. Almost five years later, the emotion is still strong when she talks about the first hours in the hospital. “I wasn't allowed to touch him, I wasn't allowed to kiss him, I just had the right to be next to him, to look at him, to talk to him. And I told him everything was going to be okay, that we all loved him and that I loved him. Then he said yes to me, answered me with a yes, and then I waved to him and he also waved to me, but without imagining that I would never see him again my father“, remembers Nathalie De Sousa Ferreira, sobs in her voice.
“I don’t even know if it’s Dad we buried”
Died on March 31, 2020, Nathalie and her family will only see the body for around ten minutes in the morgue, without being able to approach it. “I don't even know if it's Dad we buried. I don't even know at all because we saw him in the morgue with that hospital gown, that bag of trash, but then we never saw him again. We weren't allowed to pour it into beer, nothing. I knew one day I was going to lose Dad, but not like this. Not in this way where I couldn't touch him, kiss him, see that coffin close. Nothing, nothing. And in fact, everything was stolen from us, everything.“
Her father died of Covid, she has a stele erected in the cemetery of her town
A tear and uncertainties which had consequences on his own health. Victim of post-traumatic shock, Nathalie was declared category 2 disabled and has been receiving therapy for more than three years now. Member of the “Victims of Covid-19” association, she hoped that the families of the Covid dead would have a place to worship. She turned to the mayor of her town who, touched by her story, immediately agreed that a commemorative stele be installed in the Saint-Genis-Laval cemetery.
A national day of tribute
A stele and a tree, a Chinese pear tree; the place was inaugurated this Monday, December 9 by members of the association, relatives of victims and elected officials. “The objective is also to bring comfort and to say that we have not forgotten them. And to also say that what they went through, we know that it was very difficult and very complicated and that we also sympathize with the pain they felt.” testifies Marylène Millet, mayor of Saint-Genis-Laval.
Now begins another fight for Nathalie and the “Victims of Covid-19” association, a fight shared by other victims’ associations in France: convincing the State to establish a national day of tribute to the deaths of Covid.
