Interview with Jackie Frey

Interview in December 2020

On the pandemic and losing her husband Phil:

We visited my daughter Merideth in NY in September after she started teaching at Sara Lawrence and had a son who had just turned one in June 2016. We were really proud grandparents. However, apparently it was that plane flight back from New York to California at the end of September which caused Phil’s blood clot, but we didn't know. A few weeks later Phil was having problems with breathing. He went to his doctor who was in Gilroy, who was a specialist. And he was told it was some kind of viral pleurisy, so there wasn't a medication he could take and he accepted that he just had to live with being really short of breath for a while. When it didn't go away and kept going worse, to the point where he couldn't go up and down the stairs, and he couldn't walk very well without being totally out of breath, he called the doctor and the doctor had him get a chest x-ray and then sent him on to a specialist. The day after he saw the specialist, that morning, he couldn't breathe well at all. He had stayed the night up in a chair so he was upright but could barely breathe. I called an ambulance because I didn't think I could get him down the stairs from our house. And the ambulance arrived and I thought the ambulance was just going to take him to the hospital and give him oxygen and he'd recover. But instead, when he got the oxygen, apparently it was more than he could actually take. It caused something to happen anyway. He went into cardiac arrest and they couldn't revive him. So it was a very sudden death and a very unexpected death. It was very hard that it was right on the landing of my living room on top of the stairs, because he was waiting for the ambulance people on the top stair and asked them for oxygen, and then within 10 minutes he was dead.

So that was four years ago. Now the pandemic has kind of brought back the loss, the isolation, that staring at the stairs and my being at the house a lot. It revived my grief, which had never really gone away.

But it was getting better. I was getting through things. So it's been a tough time for me.

I started writing poetry just to deal with that. But seeing the people who have to keep a distance, I wrote the poem, “I Blow a Kiss to say Goodbye” remembering Phil's death there on the steps and how I had to be at a distance to let the paramedics work on him, so I never really got to say goodbye or kiss him goodbye. How hard that was! Within this pandemic, when family members can't be close to those who are dying, it really triggered something in me because I felt very touched by that. All these images of relatives being distant and not being able to be there to hold their hands and kiss them goodbye really got to me. And still does.

How has the pandemic affected your everyday life?

I've been very careful. I still work, but I work almost all virtually. I retired from my county job the year that Phil died, that January. It was to be a year of focusing on family and visits. But I work part time contractually with First Five Monterey County and did some mental health consulting and some reflective supervision with groups of playgroup leaders and health care coordinators and other therapists. I still do that part time, but I do it virtually. So almost all my work now is not visiting at the sites but actually just doing it on Zoom. That has really been in some ways a blessing for my mental health because it's kept me connected to people, even though I've been so isolated in my  house by myself and with my dog. I take my dog for a walk, four walks a day around the neighborhood to keep my exercise up. I had to give up my walking with my best friend, which I did for years, because we're both over 70. And it wouldn't have been a good thing healthwise to possibly give each other the virus. So we just talked on the phone. I'm not an introvert. I'm an extrovert. I get energy from being with people. So it's been a tough thing for me to be so isolated. But thank God for Zoom. I mean, I can stay connected that way through both work and with my church and with different groups I'm involved with and my family. I appreciate that.

What has St. Mary’s meant to you during the pandemic?

It's not a haughty church. It's not a stuck-up church. Its people seem to be genuinely caring about each other. I wish we had a bigger group of younger people and younger families than we do. That's where I think our biggest need is. I served a lot in our church in Gilroy with those ages. But I love the people dearly. I love the small groups. I love the spiritual writing class. I love the sermons. All of this feeds me and feeds my prayer life and feeds my spiritual life. I need to be fed in that area because I'm so empty in a lot of other ways. So it sustains me. I really am grateful to St. Mary's. God has sustained me through that, and he's present with me through that worship and through the connections I have with the people there.

How do you imagine St. Mary's in the future; do you think the pandemic will change us permanently?

In some ways, we don't have the amount of people, but I was very fearful when we stopped being able to meet at the church that we would drastically lose our congregation when we weren't that large a congregation to begin with and that it would cause the church to fold. I was afraid of that.

And yet we've been able to sustain our numbers through our Zoom connections and we have generally between 50 and 60 people, usually, every Sunday on Zoom. That may not seem like very much, but considering that when we were meeting live and had two services that was still 120 at most and sometimes less, we haven't declined that much. We've been able to do the choir virtually, which is wonderful. We've been able to have some wonderful classes and small groups and discussions, so we've maintained our relationships in spite of not being able to gather together, which I think is really lovely. I think if we can do that, then when we can gather together again, I think we're going to have more energy to take it forward from this. But I think we probably also will continue to do more virtual stuff because we have an older population that's very susceptible to getting the virus. And I think the virus is going to be among us for a while.

So I have a feeling that we’ll still need these virtual connections that we've built  in the future, which wasn't that much of part of what we did before. And I don't think that's bad. I think it's really good.

I also think it's a possibility of our being able to reach out to younger people in younger families who are more used to virtual connections anyway and in whom, probably, the pandemic has planted the seed of feeling isolated and the need to belong to groups and community. I think churches might have a new beginning by providing that because families are no longer all together in one town there and so many young families are isolated from their biological families and need connections in the community, and we have loving people.

So what habits or practices have been the most important to you during this time, either spiritual ones or just everyday sorts of habits?

I wish I could say I do my Bible reading every day, and I don't. I do look at the scriptures and I study them a little bit on my own, and I have been part of some Bible discussion groups. I pray a lot. I really do pray a lot. And my singing. I write poems and they’re spiritual poems, they’re prayer poems. I've been able to do that. And I've written quite a few over this pandemic period. Because that way I'm not so alone. I really feel inspired. I really believe in the Holy Spirit. That is not stopped by the virus.

How have you dealt with the uncertainty that we all face?

If anything, this has really taught me we can't control our lives as much as we'd love to.

I don't even know what I’m going to really do tomorrow because it might get canceled. So we do what we can, to do what we were called to do, so we feel like we're living our life in a meaningful way.

We can try to connect, and I try to stay connected with my family through Zoom and through calls.

We can pray for each other. And sing with each other and celebrate with each other, but it's got to be at a distance and eventually, hopefully, that distance will also include some times of gathering together. I'm really looking forward to when that can happen.

But we don't know when that's going to be and living with that uncertainty is just going to have to be OK.

It's not fun. It's not. But it's something I know I can't dictate and no one can.

What about this time has surprised you the most, either in a good way or a bad way?

In a good way, I'm surprised that we've been able to connect, still stay connected to each other. I'm very grateful for technology for that reason. I've not always had a positive view of it, but this year has increased the way I value it for being able to do things like this.

And the virtual choir. It’s a pain not being able to listen to the other people to harmonize with them because we have to be muted. But it's just incredibly important. And that surprised me.

I have grown really appreciative of technology where I was somewhat distrustful of it before. So that surprised me. What also surprised me is that relationships can be maintained even when there isn't a physical connection.

Basically, connection's been really important to me, and always has been. In fact, after Phil died, the thing that struck me the most was my longing for a physical connection and not having any.

The isolation  has really affected me. I mean, health-wise, I've been so cautious that it's possible I still go to the store just once a week. There’s a possibility I will contract this virus. I know that I try to be really careful and always wear a mask when I'm outside, but one never knows. And one of the things I think I've had to deal with and face is how little control we really have. And what we do need to do is just make the most of the time we've got and serve God and serve each other and take a respectful attitude toward creation.