Joseph J. Thomas looked frightened.
He was dying from Covid-19, without his family around him. Each of his five children were saying their goodbyes remotely, on Thanksgiving day.
They were still reeling from their mother's death from Covid-19 two weeks before.
Both parents had contracted the virus in different nursing homes. Marie S. Thomas, 94, was in Autumn View Health Care Facility in Hamburg with advanced Alzheimer's disease. The disease had progressed to the point where she had not been able to talk with her children since the spring.
But Jay Thomas, as he was known, a retired lawyer living at Canterbury Woods in Amherst, was alert until the end.
He called each of his children after Marie, his former wife, died Nov. 13 at Harris Hill Nursing Facility in Amherst. While they had been divorced for more than 40 years, neither had remarried and he knew how much their children were hurting.
"I'm so sorry about your mom," he told his children, Catherine Watson, Lisa Ashbrook, Linda, Christopher and Daniel Thomas.
He asked Ashbrook, who lives in North Carolina, if she was coming up for her mother's services.
"Oh honey, I don't think you should, it's not safe," he told her, referring to the surge in coronavirus infections in Western New York.
But he had already been exposed. And the virus moved quickly in the 98-year-old who had congestive heart failure. His children learned he had tested positive Nov. 23.
"When I saw him on camera, he looked so worried. I said to him, 'Dad, please don't fear, please don't be afraid. God has you, he has you in the palm of his hand,' " Ashbrook said.
She told him she would miss him.
"Honey, I will always be with you," her father told her.
She wanted to jump through the screen and hold his hand.
"I hung up that phone and made noises I've never made in my life," she said.
The Thomas family parents were just two among dozens of Covid-19 fatalities in Erie County in November as the second wave of the virus hit the region. From Nov. 1 to Dec. 4, 100 of the 171 Covid-19 deaths in Erie County had involved individuals residing in nursing homes and other congregate settings, according to the Erie County Department of Health.
Autumn View and Canterbury Woods have both been identified by the county Health Department as nursing homes with recent outbreaks of Covid-19, with each having more than a dozen positive tests in some weeks. Autumn View had 51 residents test positive the week Marie Thomas died.
Through Nov. 29, Autumn View had nine residents with Covid-19 die, according to statistics nursing homes provide to the federal government. Canterbury Woods had its first Covid-19 death around the end of November, a spokesperson said.
Learned computer skills in her 80s
Ashbrook had rushed up to New York State the first week in March, right before the pandemic shut things down. She knew her mother, who entered the nursing home just three months before, was failing quickly. Her children knew what the coming months would be for her as the dementia quickly progressed.
"I said a lot of what I wanted to say to her when she could understand me," Ashbrook said. "I felt at peace when she passed."
She and her mother were close because they both liked the arts. Marie Thomas loved opera and was a Russian history buff, passing those loves onto her granddaughters. She had always wanted to visit Russia.
She also was an excellent cook, learning how to prepare Italian dishes from her sister-in-law. She loved playing cards, and did a crossword puzzle every day.
When she was in her 80s, Marie Thomas bought a computer and taught herself how to use it.
She was the daughter of two German parents on the East Side whose siblings had been born in Germany. The former Marie Schreiber excelled in school and went to business school after high school. She worked in the insurance industry until she met Jay Thomas and they married in 1955.
"He was quite debonair. She fell for him," Ashbrook said.
Son of a shoeshine man
Jay Thomas's parents came to America from Italy around the turn of the last century. His father was a West Side shoeshine man who scraped together money to send his son to college. He graduated from Canisius College, and worked in insurance while he saved money for law school. He graduated from the University of Buffalo Law School.
A 20th century Renaissance man, he drew up plans for the family home built on South Creek Road in Derby. Although he was born with the lower portion of his left arm missing, he manned a rototiller, planting gardens, grape vines and fruit trees on the 3.5-acre property. He also loved art and collected antiques and played tennis.
And he was a great conversationalist. Ashbrook recalls having a robust discussion about the 2020 presidential election with him.
He didn't worry too much, so when his children saw him remotely for the last time, they were struck by how worried, frightened and alone he looked.
"I couldn't hold his hand, I couldn't do anything," Ashbrook said. "It was quite otherworldly."
He died two days later, on Nov. 28 in Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital.
Ashbrook misses her conversation buddy.
"I was so mad, just mad at our country, you know? Now, seeing that weeks later he could have been vaccinated, maybe. He just missed it," she said. "We were trying to pray him through to the vaccine."
The first Covid-19 vaccines in the United States were administered Monday. Nursing home residents and workers are to be the first recipients of the vaccine in New York State, followed by health care workers.
"I just wanted so much to see him when it was over. I was really hoping for that. But God had other plans," she said.
She said she has gotten past her anger and sadness. The family is concentrating on how long they did have their parents, who also had eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
"Our situation was hard, but we had parents who lived a long and relatively healthy life," Ashbrook said.
The Buffalo News is publishing stories about Buffalo area people who have died due to Covid-19. Please contact The News at citydesk@buffnews.com if you know of someone whose story we should tell.
