VIRUS DIARY: As time ran short, a son rushed to say goodbye

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — No man is an island, the poem says. But amid pandemic quarantine, when my dad started having episodes of feeling faint, he seemed so isolated.

Coronavirus protocols meant consulting a doctor by video who told him his symptoms weren’t worrisome, and he only needed to be careful about falling.

Then he fainted and went into a coma.

My mom wasn’t sure that my dad, a physician, would want me or my three brothers risking infection to travel home to Massachusetts. But final farewells seemed near. So after five months of avoiding airplanes and hospitals, I rushed headlong toward both.

We spent days in the critical care unit, hearing worsening prognoses. They allowed us all into his room, and one night we huddled to watch a last Red Sox game together with a team blanket draped over Dad’s legs. As the Sox clobbered the Orioles, we muffled cheers. His late-game snoring made it seem he’d dozed off, per usual.

The next day, we each spent time alone with him. I told him I knew I’d hear his voice when questions about fatherhood eventually arise. Then we all gathered around him and held hands. My mom prayed, and he slipped away.

“Your father had a beautiful death,” she said to me a few nights later.

My dad was at college when his father passed. My grandfather had a watch repair shop in Rhode Island. He suffered a heart attack just after retirement while awaiting an airport taxi for his first-ever vacation, to Bermuda. I believe that taught my dad how time can suddenly run short. It could explain why he had an uncanny ability to distill joy from small moments.

I keep coming back to the family vacation we’d planned for July, and how it would’ve been more than just another trip. The purpose had been to commemorate him surviving open-heart...