'You shouldn’t take anything for granted': Family loses three to COVID in nine months

“I’m a reserved person, I think,” Mattie Fish, 84, said. “I’m not a leader. I don’t like to make decisions.”

But late on a Thursday evening last Feb. 11, her older son, Roger Fish, took a phone call from the hospital in Oklahoma City where his brother, Ashley Fish — Mattie’s younger son — had been transferred. Ashley, who was on a ventilator fighting COVID, had taken a turn for the worse, they said, and Mattie needed to go to the hospital and make a decision.

So she and Roger and Ashley’s children went the following morning, braving the biting cold and icy roads, to say goodbye to Ashley, 53.

“He was in a coma, but they told us he could hear us,” Mattie said. “So I told him that his whole life had been dedicated to his children and that he was a good father.”

After Ashley died, the family returned to the Sand Springs residence they have called home since 1965. Just hours later, on Saturday morning, “they called us to St. John (in Tulsa) to do the same thing for Elmer,” Mattie said.

Unlike Ashley, Elmer Fish, 85, was conscious, “but everything was just bad,” his wife said. “There was nothing encouraging.

“He didn’t want to go on the ventilator. That wasn’t even an option at that point,” Mattie said. “Early on, he had told the nurses that he didn’t want the ventilator.”

Elmer hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital, either, after his doctor told the couple that he probably had COVID, so the doctor sent him home to recuperate, but he told Mattie that if Elmer got worse, she should call for an ambulance. And on Friday, Feb. 5, with Elmer unable to catch his breath, that’s what she did.

“Elmer hadn’t been in good health, anyway,” she said, but he fought the virus for more than a week.

Mattie and Roger gave the hospital permission to withhold life support, and Elmer died early on Valentine’s Day, just five weeks and three days shy of the couple’s 60th wedding anniversary.

A joint funeral service was held for Ashley and Elmer at Angus Acres Baptist Church, where Elmer and Mattie attended for decades. Mattie said the auditorium was full of mourners.

But the family’s grief would continue.

A little more than six months after Ashley and Elmer were laid to rest, Roger got sick.

‘I know he heard me’

“I leaned heavily on Roger after Ashley and Elmer passed,” Mattie said, “and after he got sick, I told my pastor, ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do.’

“I went up to the hospital every day. Roger was in St. Francis (in Tulsa),” she said. “He had a hard struggle, and everything was negative. His kidneys shut down early on, and they just never did come back.”

Roger, who went into the hospital on Sept. 2, also had repeated cardiac and blood pressure episodes.

“I tried to prepare my grandkids that if he survived, he was going to have a long-term recovery,” Mattie said.

Eight weeks after Roger entered the hospital, on Thursday, Oct. 28, his mother was asked for permission to cease life-sustaining measures.

“On Friday, I couldn’t go up there,” she said. “I just couldn’t.”

Roger, 59, died the next day when his blood pressure shot up and he went into cardiac arrest. Medical personnel performed CPR but were unable to save him.

“I had talked to him,” Mattie said. “Maybe he tried to protect me (by dying anyway). “I knew he wouldn’t want to live like that. I just knew it wasn’t going to be good, but I just couldn’t let go — just couldn’t make a decision.

“That was my last conversation with him,” she said. “I know he heard me. I know he heard me.”

‘Now there’s just a few of us’

Raley Fish is just 17, but she’s old beyond her years.

Ashley’s daughter, she plans to graduate from high school this year — a year early — and care for her younger siblings, Sammie, 16, and Rollin, 11.

Their older brother, Riley Weir, is attending college in Kansas.

Mattie is the younger kids’ guardian now, but none of them feels like it’s fair for an 84-year-old woman to have to raise a houseful of grandkids.

And, as their recent experience has shown, you can never know how long a person will live.

“She wouldn’t say she does, but I know she has hard times sometimes,” Raley said of Mattie. “I feel like she’s doing a fantastic job, honestly.”

Still, Raley is taking on more of the responsibilities.

“My dad’s important thing was school. The toughest he was on us was about schoolwork,” she said. “We needed to have A’s and be good students, so I keep on my siblings about that and keep up with that myself because I feel like that’s what he would want us to do.”

And she says she’s ready for whatever else comes.

“I’m going to be 18 this year,” she said. “And I would do anything for them.”

Family was always a big thing, Raley said.

“All of them were parents to all of us kids. Everyone was always around,” she said. “We were all like one big family.”

And the family that’s left now, well, it’s struggling.

“It’s been really tough without all of them,” Raley said. “The holidays were hard. We always seemed to have a big family, and now there’s just a few of us.”

‘I didn’t see my life going this way’

For her part, Raley tries to focus on the future.

She and Sammie attend classes at Barnsdall High School, while Rollin goes to Angus Acres Elementary School.

But Raley also takes pre-nursing classes at Tri County Tech in Bartlesville and basic education classes at the Rogers State University campus there in hopes of getting into RSU’s nursing program.

“I always wanted to be a nurse,” she said. “It’s what me and my dad had always talked about. I like to help people.”

She acknowledges that the very pandemic that has stolen so much from her family makes it difficult to think about a career in health care.

“It does feel scary with the pandemic going on,” she said, “but there has to be somebody to help all these people.”

Ashley actually survived his first battle with COVID. He became infected in August 2020 and was pretty sick for a week or two.

“He was like, ‘That was the worst thing I ever went through,’” Raley said, adding that he got very serious about wearing masks and taking other precautions, saying, “Nobody should have to go through what I went through.”

The second time he became ill, he suddenly spiked a fever of 104. The hospital tried to admit him, but Ashley wouldn’t agree to that until he was able to ensure that his children would be cared for.

“He went back the next day, and he was there for about a month before he died,” Raley said.

She said she believes that her father would have gotten vaccinated against COVID if he had had the opportunity, and she added that the rest of the family has since done so.

“We all live with my grandma, and she’s older, and she doesn’t want to get it because she’s all we have,” she said.

That’s a lesson that Raley and her family have taken to heart.

“You can’t really take any moment for granted,” she said. “The whole time they were in the hospital, I kept telling myself they were going to make it, but they didn’t make it. I remember my dad telling us we were all his angels, but he thought he was going to make it, and he didn’t.”

Raley said she has some better days and some not-so-good days.

“I won’t say I feel cheated,” she said. “I know life’s unfair, but I didn’t see my life going this way. I don’t know why this happened to us.”

‘I’ve only got me’

Lacey Fish said her father, Roger, was always quiet until you got to know him.

“He was a listener and great advice giver,” she said.

That was especially important for Lacey, whose mother, Wendy Fish, died in 2016, leaving Roger to finish raising Lacey. And now, with her father gone, too, Lacey sometimes wonders where to turn for that listening ear.

“I definitely feel alone — more than I’d like to admit, actually,” she said. “I love my family. They’ve really helped me through these tough times. But nothing compares to the love and care from your mom and dad.

“It’s definitely hard around the holidays and birthdays,” she said. “But I know they are with me in spirit. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to have to lose a parent so young, or, even worse, both.

“I’m 24 and have no parents or siblings. I’ve only got me.”

Lacey lives in the house she shared with her parents and works at a hair salon, but she said she doesn’t know if that’s a long-term plan.

“After all I’ve experienced in hospitals, with multiple family members being admitted throughout the years, I think I want to do something in health care — possibly a nurse of some sort,” she said. “I don’t know, honestly. I’m still figuring that out.”

Lacey said Roger started “feeling icky” early one week in late August, but by the end of the week, he felt so bad he left work early.

“I made him an appointment to get tested, which was obviously positive,” she said. “After a week of not getting noticeably better, he asked me to take him to the hospital.”

For the next three weeks, Roger’s family couldn’t see him.

“After he tested negative, we were able to go and see him and even get a few pictures with him,” Lacey said. “He was doing better, and they were even talking about sending him to a rehab facility until he was 100% again.

“And then he took a turn for the worse when he developed a bacterial infection in his lungs,” she said. “He was then put on a ventilator.

“I didn’t even get to see him before. The doctors asked if he wanted to make a phone call, and he told them he didn’t even think he could talk,” Lacey said. “It must have been so scary for him because he’s the one that told the doctors he couldn’t breathe anymore on his own.

“He was on the vent for about a month before he passed.”

‘I think he would be proud’

Lacey said Roger never thought COVID “would be that bad. I didn’t even think it would be bad.”

Mattie said Roger was planning to be vaccinated but that “we were always so busy.”

But Lacey said there were hesitations about the vaccine, too.

“He was up in the air about it, which is understandable. He had heard about many side effects and so on,” she said. “Looking back, I really wish he had gotten it.

“I was sort of against it, as well, until I noticed that COVID was literally attacking my family,” she said. “I got vaccinated soon after he passed away. I think he would be proud of my decision.”

Lacey still struggles with the loss, especially this time of the year.

“It’s very hard for me at the moment,” she said. “We just had the holidays, and his birthday is at the beginning of January.

“I feel very isolated some days — just deep in my thoughts. And other days, I enjoy the happy memories and pictures and music we shared together.

“He truly was my best friend — my whole heart.”

Lacey also offered advice about remembering what’s important.

“You shouldn’t take anything for granted,” she said. “If I learned anything in 2021, it would be that. I never would’ve thought this would happen to me — losing three of my closest family members in less than nine months.

“Spend time with your grandparents, aunts, uncles — even if it’s just a phone call here and there,” she said. “You never know when the last time you will see them will be.

“Life is hard right now, but I know God has a plan for me. Better days will follow, and that’s all I’m looking forward to.”

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