While Sesma mourns, mariachi music cuts through the silence. “I’d rather sleep than wake up because it hurts a lot that you’re not here,” the band said in Spanish.
She buried her mother in South Los Angeles last week. But she had to say goodbye in a parking lot.
The coffin was placed in one corner, under a pop-up canopy – with flower arrangements and photos all around. Chairs are separated from each other in parking lots.
It was the only safe space where people could socially give up while mourning, which the Golgotha Chapel – close to the Sesma family in South LA – had available.
“Wait to bury her, it feels like torture,” Sesma told CNN. “We were worried about what she would look like.”
She said she was worried that her mother’s body would become distorted and would begin to disintegrate before she could see her face for the last time.
At the funeral, Sesma stands while she prays. Her faith, she said, is the only thing that fascinates her in the wake of such a loss.
Sesma’s family contracted Covid in December
Sesma said she left her job as a real estate agent to go live with her mother and stepfather due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Her mother, a retired machinist, had lung disease. Her stepfather was a handyman, with asthma and diabetes. Her brother lived next door with his young family.
In December, she said they had all contracted Covid-19. Her parents eventually became so ill that they had to be admitted to the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South LA.
The modern hospital – teeming with patients – is a haven in a health desert in the heavy black and Latino area of the city.
“Our emergency department is designed to treat 40 to 45,000 patients a year. In 2019 – before Covid – we saw 110,000 patients a year,” said Dr. Elaine Batchlor, hospital chief, said. “This is mainly due to a lack of access to quality care in the community.”
With coronavirus, there are even more patients everywhere, she said.
Los Angeles reported 12,617 new cases on Monday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 932,697 as the province approaches the bleak milestone of 1 million cases. An additional 137 new deaths were reported, increasing the total number of deaths to 12,387.
“Do not let it be you”
The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital normally has a capacity of 135 beds, but according to Batchlor he now treats more than 200 people inside. More than 60% are coronavirus patients.
Batchlor said the hospital gets some of the sickest patients in the city and state.
“Diabetes is three times more common here than in the rest of California. The death rate is 72% higher. Life expectancy here is ten years shorter than in the rest of the state,” Batchlor said. “It all has to do with the fact that it is a community that does not have enough resources and an underserved community.”
And that means that what happened to the Sesma family is usually the norm, not the exception.
“We have had the misfortune to see this disease run through families, and all too often it takes several members of a single family,” said Dr. Jason Prasso, who treated Sesma’s mother and stepfather, said.
The pain of the losses for doctors and nurses sits on their shoulders like a dull weight not getting away. To lose families, someone claims Covid.
“We lost my mother and stepfather to the coronavirus,” Sesma said. “Do not let it be you. If you really love your loved ones, it should not be you. Keep taking all precautions, take extra precautions, exaggerate if you have to.”