‘This grief is intense’: Rock Hill joins national effort honoring lives lost to COVID
Kristy Bengivenga picked up the glass picture frame holding a photo of her husband, Ed. She took the corner of her T-shirt and wiped off the fingerprints speckled around the frame’s edges.
She smiled as she looked at the photo of him standing in the couple’s bathroom after he had just finished remodeling it. He was wearing a T-shirt from his daughter that said, “I’m the proud dad” of an ... awesome lunch lady.
“I actually was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, so he surprised me,” Kristy said. “I had this trip to England. It was planned with my dad for 40-some years. I ended up going. When I was gone, he did the bathroom.”
Kristy continued to rub the frame for a few minutes until it was spotless. Then, she gently placed it back on the table, next to the other frames with photos of people in the Rock Hill area who have died from the coronavirus.
Kristy organized the memorial Monday outside the Rock Hill City Hall as part of the national effort, known as The Floral Heart Project to recognize those lost to COVID-19. About 100 events associated with the effort were planned across the country Monday, and Kristy’s event was the only one scheduled in the Carolinas.
Kristy and a few other volunteers set up floral heart displays in front of City Hall. On one table, four frames were set up with red rose petals and candles. Above the table, paper hearts with the names of those who died were stuck to the window.
About a dozen people came by to hang up a paper heart. At one point, Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys visited the memorial and dropped off flowers.
“He’s the reason that I’m here,” Kristy said, pointing to her husband Ed’s picture frame. “My love for him and all those who have passed is why I’m here. It started out with Ed, but I want everyone who wants to mourn their loved one to be able to.”
‘Feeling of dread’
Ed was the family’s go-to handyman, Kristy said. He had remodeled “at least three” bathrooms for his family, she said.
“When I want to feel close to him, I go into our bathroom,” Kristy said. “It sounds silly, but that’s what I do.”
Ed was in the middle of remodeling his mom’s bathroom when he got sick near the end of July. Kristy, Ed and their 10-year-old son all contracted the virus.
“Ed was the one who got hit the worst,” Kristy said. “He had the cough. His oxygen levels were low. He didn’t want to go to hospital, so he waited for about a week, and then, he said, ‘I’m calling the ambulance.’”
Ed, who was 55, called an ambulance on his birthday. “I had this feeling of dread — like something bad was going to happen to him,” Kristy said.
After a few days, Ed’s oxygen levels were better and he was able to come home.
“I’m so blessed for that one day,” Kristy said. “We celebrated his birthday and he just got to be home, but he still wasn’t feeling well.”
He went back to the hospital the next day and he appeared to be doing well, Kristy said. He talked with her on Face Time every day.
Until one day, he wasn’t responding as frequently as he had been, so Kristy called the nurse’s station.
“They just said, ‘He’s fine. He’s having an off day, but he’ll be fine,’” Kristy said. “They transferred me to his room and he answered. I said, ‘Hey, I’m worried about you. I’ve not heard from you.’ It’s 5 o’clock at night and I hadn’t heard anything. He said, ‘I had a setback. I can’t talk.’”
At 12:30 a.m., a nurse called to tell Kristy that Ed’s heart stopped.
“That was the last time I talked to him,” she said. “Those were his last words. I said, ‘Please can I come see him? Please!’ The doctor said no. It was awful. I could’ve jumped through the phone. I didn’t do anything. I just listened. I wish now that I would’ve called somebody else and gotten a different answer.”
Ed’s family had to hire a contractor to finish remodeling the bathroom.
‘Didn’t get a redo’
Clancy Collins, who lost her father to coronavirus in November, stood beside Kristy outside City Hall and nodded her head.
“This is healing to me,” Clancy said. Her mask hid the tears that fell down her face. “I needed this.”
Her father, Billy Collins, 74, spent nearly 12 days in the hospital before he died. Like Kristy, Clancy wasn’t able be with her father when he passed.
“This grief is so intense,” she said. “We didn’t get a redo. We couldn’t go back and say goodbye again. He died all alone.”
Throughout the eight-hour event, people moved past the memorial. Some walked right past it, but most stopped to read the hearts and admire the floral heart.
While volunteering at the event, Carol Harvey, who works with the city, noticed a friend’s name on one of the paper hearts. She didn’t know that her friend died from the virus.
“We have to be mindful of what they’re telling us,” Harvey said. “Wash your hands. Stay socially distanced. Just be mindful of others. This is what we need to do.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2021 at 5:53 PM.
