For nearly a mile, tens of thousands of hand-painted red and pink hearts brighten a grey concrete London wall stretching along the southern bank of the rippling River Thames, with its mossy barriers and passing boats.
Last Valentine’s Day, across in New York, Bibi Romeiza Khan-John and her husband Dwayne wore something stylish and red, posing along the cleared sidewalk, flanked by heaped mounds of snow.
Inside the warm Queens home they shared with their blended family of three sons, the Guyanese-born couple sat for a commemorative photo, tightly holding hands on the couch. She sported a stylish bandana and matching tights, he chose a bright GAP sweatshirt in the distinct traditional hue.
Their dining table was covered with gifts of fresh roses,
bottles of wine and fine perfumes, and a special heart-shaped box of chocolates. The romantic pair had planned an evening meal that Sunday, hoping “to have some fun,” but he had not been feeling so well and had to be coaxed and teased by his wife into coming outside for the snapshots taken by the children.
Two days later, three members of the family were diagnosed with COVID-19. Bibi’s son, Steven Timothy Gildharry, 22, from her first marriage in Trinidad and Tobago, was spared, because he lived in a separate section of the house with its own entrance and exit. Mr John’s attack was so severe and he endured so much body pain that he feared, “I am going to die.”
Dazed Dwayne still finds it hard to believe that he survived but beautiful Bibi, his wife of just five years, who was the life of the party, will not be waiting at the door with her big smile and hug to welcome him home. Sharing a video of them dancing, he declared, “You were my fun. Could be how tired I was after work, you were the party BJ.” Mrs. John died on March 25 after suddenly going into cardiac arrest at a hospital in Forest Hills, Queens. She was 48.
One of their boys, his older son Jonathan, 17, contracted the virus at the same time as the couple, but his case was mild and he recovered quickly. The younger Jaden, 13 did not get it, as they all quarantined at home. By that Friday, February 19, Bibi developed breathing problems and had to be hospitalised. Yet, she appeared to be recovering, and they were optimistic during conversations on FaceTime she would soon return home.
When the pandemic emerged last year, the Johns had discussed their options. As a home health aide with a private agency, she had to deal directly with people. His job was more impersonal. To reduce their risks they were especially careful observing all the protocols. “She agreed to stop working and stayed home. I became the sole breadwinner because I did not have to deal with people that much,” he recalled. “We were planning to eventually start our own business – a home health agency.”
Sitting in his car alone, outside the metal fabrication firm he is employed with, as an ironworker, Mr John sadly tells me by phone yesterday afternoon, “It is never going to be the same (without Bibi) – there is no one to go home to” other than “the kids.” He admits, “You don’t have to leave the house to get COVID-19” and believes an asymptomatic visitor may have inadvertently brought the killer virus into their residence. Initially hesitant they had booked their vaccines, and were due to be immunised against COVID that very week in February.
“We share the same birthday, December 6,” Dwayne related. “She was very loving, patient, caring and an understanding individual” and “a great cook of almost anything.” He remembered, “We so seldom quarrelled, I used to wonder if we were abnormal.” Praising his wife, Mr John listed many qualities. “She was good with our children, she was good with finances, she was good at organising and administrating” and “She was always very transparent with her ideas and decision making…”
They complemented each other perfectly with a mutual love of the outdoors and a passion for sharing with others less fortunate. Bibi was so generous and thoughtful, she even gave up earlier jobs to newly-arrived Guyanese migrants struggling to cope, telling her protesting spouse, “I will find another, and she always did.”
A natural caregiver, Bibi had trained through the Salvation Army to become a nurse and aide, migrating to the United States of America in the early 2000s, where she took particular pride in looking after the elderly. “One of her patients was William Simpson, 91, whom she had cared for 10 years. There were tensions in his family, and toward the end, when he was in the final stages of dementia, Ms. John was able to help family members reconcile with him and with one another, his daughter Jordana I. Simpson said,” in an interview with the New York Times. Mrs John “held his hand as he took his last breath,” she told the newspaper, adding that through the aide’s compassion and empathy, Mrs John “did everything right.”
When Dwayne worried about writing trade exams, after reluctantly moving to New York, giving up a good post in Guyana as a qualified civil engineer to join her and start over in 2019, “She was there saying, ‘Don’t worry, you will make it’ and every day was the same thing,” the grieving husband marvelled. “She was such a true representation of a wife, I used to feel like a king” he admitted, acknowledging, “I have suffered such a great loss.”
They had known each other as passing acquaintances in West Coast Demerara, since Bibi lived in the village of Vergenoegen on the East Bank Essequibo. While attending a wedding in Guyana back in 2015, she met Dwayne again and they became friends, marrying the following year. She would achieve many of her goals, including becoming an American in 2018 and buying her own home.
Encouraging everyone to take the vaccines available, the Pomeroon-born father advised, “Don’t be too busy running behind your job and other things to make money. Try to spend more time with your family, kids and friends because they will be the ones to miss you when you are gone, and do help others if you can.”
Days ago he finally received his Johnson and Johnson shot. But he mourns for the “once-in-a lifetime-love” lost and “my fairy-tale marriage” that is no more.
Last month, one of Bibi’s youngest cousins, who she has never met, Azizan Rashid added a single heart for her on the poignant National COVID Memorial Wall, recently launched outside St Thomas Hospital, and opposite the British Houses of Parliament, to mark the estimated 150 000 people who have died in the United Kingdom. For now it is a job without end as dedicated volunteers draw ever more hearts. It takes at least 10 minutes to walk the full length of this wailing wall.
ID extends condolences to the Johns and all those grieving loved ones. “Please do not take COVID lightly,” Dwayne John warned. “Don’t take life and people for granted – not ever, because you do not know if this will be the last day for you and them.”
