David Mekeel: Reading father and son both lose their lives to COVID

Feb. 7—Dec. 3, a Friday, was the day that everything changed for the Kurtz family.

Linda Kurtz was sitting on the floor in the living room of her Reading home. Her adult son Jason was behind her on the sofa. And her husband, Ken, was a few feet away on an easy chair.

All three were fighting severe cases of COVID. All three needed help.

"Jason said, 'Dad's already gone,' " Linda said, recalling that fateful day while sitting in that same easy chair last week. "Before we even called 9-1-1 he was dead."

The rest of that day is a blur for Linda. She knows that someone did, at some point, call 9-1-1.

An ambulance arrived and whisked her and her son away. Linda would end up hospitalized at Reading Hospital and a rehab facility for 17 days.

Jason was taken directly into intensive care at Reading Hospital. The 47-year-old would never leave.

Nine days after COVID took his father's life, it would claim Jason's as well.

The days and weeks since have been difficult for Linda, to say the least. Her world was shattered by COVID.

Reliving it all — the fear and confusion, the loss and longing — is painful. But Linda says her family's story is one that desperately needs to be told.

"I would like people to know what can happen," she said. "Don't think it can't happen to you, because we didn't think it could happen to us."

Dealing with the pandemic differently

Before the COVID pandemic breached the borders of Berks County, changing just about every aspect of daily life in its wake, Linda and Ken were a pretty active couple.

Both retired, they enjoyed going to auctions and flea markets, with Ken always keeping an eye out for a remote controlled plane kit he could build at his basement workbench.

They enjoyed heading out to the movie theater, Linda said. And they liked to travel, often taking trips to their time-share in Virginia or to spots in New York state.

COVID forced them to change their ways.

"We stopped going out," Linda said. "When COVID hit, at that point everything stopped dead. We weren't people to go out and be in crowds."

Linda said she pretty much only ventured out to get groceries. Most times she was accompanied by Jason, who was out of work and living with his parents.

When vaccinations became available, Linda and Ken got their first two shots. They didn't, however, get their boosters.

Jason was a different story.

"We just could not persuade him to get a shot," Linda said.

Jason refused to get vaccinated. According to his mother and older brother, Jim, his stance was based on a mix of stubbornness, overconfidence, conspiracy theories and religion.

"He was one of those people who thought if he got COVID he'd get over it," Linda said.

Jim, who is Jason's only sibling, said his brother shared a similar sentiment with him. But other factors were at play, too.

Jim said his little brother's politics played a role, as did his unfounded belief that the COVID vaccines are a "great social experiment" the government is performing on the public. Jason also cited religion when speaking to Jim about vaccines, saying that getting a shot is "the mark of the beast."

In conversation after conversation, Jim tried to reason with Jason. He tried to provide facts to his younger brother. He tried to keep him safe.

"I had that talk way too many times," Jim Kurtz said. "But it was one of those things where if it was coming from his big brother he didn't listen to it."

Jim, who lives in Maryland, said knowing his parents didn't have their booster shots and that his brother wasn't vaccinated at all worried him.

He had been taking the pandemic more seriously than the rest of his family, he said. He's fully vaccinated and boosted, and he and his wife are able to work from home and seldom venture out.

And when they do — to pick up a takeout meal or for a quick stop in a store — it's a different situation than the one in Pennsylvania. Maryland, he said, still has a statewide mask mandate.

"I was just sitting here cringing," he said. "I was scared for them."

Jim's fear grew when he learned his parents and brother were planning to gather with family this past Thanksgiving. Linda said she didn't share her son's worries.

"I wasn't nervous, but I knew some of the people who would be there were not vaccinated," she said. "But I wasn't even concerned that something could happen."

Something did happen.

Of the 15 people that gathered that day, 10 ended up getting COVID. Three of them — Ken, Jason and Ken's brother, Russell Kurtz — would die of the disease.

Sickness, panic and loss

The day after Thanksgiving, Linda started feeling sick.

She didn't think she had COVID, claiming that she didn't feel all that bad. Jim tells a different story, saying he thinks a "COVID fog" may be altering her memories.

Jim said that when he talked to his family on Black Friday his mom was "off." For example, he said, she had poured a fruit cup onto a paper towel instead of into a bowl.

When Jim talked to his family the next day, it was a phone conversation with Jason. His brother told him that their mom was in the hospital and that she, their dad and him all had COVID.

Linda wasn't admitted to the hospital that time, instead being treated and discharged.

When Jim called again the following Tuesday, he learned his mom had broken her shoulder. No one knew how it had happened.

In that conversation, Jim said, his dad seemed to be doing well. He was chipper and jokey.

But Jim was still concerned.

"I said, 'You guys keep an eye on each other,' " he recalled, saying he told his family that if they start feeling worse to call for help.

Jim called again Wednesday, this time finding his dad grumpy and not feeling well. His mom was asleep. He skipped Thursday, but called once more about 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

That was Dec. 3.

Jim didn't get an answer on the house phone. Calls to his mom's and brother's cellphones went to voicemail. An iMessage went unanswered.

He tried again later that night with the same result. And Saturday morning the story was the same.

"I had no idea what was going on," he said.

Jim's mother-in-law called Reading Hospital about 2 p.m. on that Saturday and found out that Linda had been admitted to the hospital. Jim called the hospital himself and found out that his brother was in intensive care. The hospital had no record for his father.

Jim assumed his dad was likely sitting in the hospital waiting room by himself. Having undergone knee replacement on both knees earlier in the year, he wouldn't have been able to drive himself home.

"At that point in time I didn't know what had happened," he said. "I was worried about my dad being in the waiting room alone."

Jim reached out to a few of his dad's brothers. One was eventually able to get in touch with Linda.

"When he called me back he was crying," Jim said.

Just after 4 p.m., Jim learned his father had died of COVID the previous day at his home.

Linda had only found out just before that her husband had passed away. The hospital chaplain had come to her room to tell her that Jason had been right. Ken had passed away on his easy chair shortly before an ambulance arrived to take her and her son to the hospital.

Unfortunately, the family's story didn't end there.

A few days later, on Dec. 12, Linda was allowed to visit Jason. He had been put on a respirator and was suffering from kidney failure.

Jason wasn't conscious, but his mother said she had a feeling he could hear her as she talked to him.

"I told him, 'This is mom,' " she said. "I gave him permission to go. We have a strong Christian background, so I said, 'God will take care of you now because I can't.' "

Thirty minutes after her visit, Jason was gone.

"It's really surreal," Jim said of the rapid loss of his father and brother. "This is what I was afraid of."

The day after Jason's death, Russell, Jason's uncle and Ken's brother, died of COVID at his home in Lancaster County.

A caring husband and a precocious son

Linda was a senior in high school when she met Ken in 1969.

A friend of Linda's was seeing a friend of Ken's and the couple set them up on a blind date. Linda recalls they went to see a movie, but can't remember which film they saw.

"I liked him right away," she said. "He was very nice."

The two dated for a few weeks, and then Ken took Linda to her prom. About a year later they were married, wed in a simple courthouse ceremony.

She was 19 and he was 20. The couple moved into their home in the first block of Arlington Street, the one were Ken would one day die and were Linda still lives.

Ken worked at a bakery until retiring in the 1990s. He loved to bake and cook, handling most of the meals at home and teaching his eldest son the tricks of the trade.

Jim recalls fondly getting calls from his mom in the late afternoon — she worked day shift and Ken worked night shift — instructing him to wake up his dad and tell him to start dinner. It would be a slow process, with Ken giving his son instructions one at a time each time the boy climbed the stairs to rouse him.

First he'd tell Jim to get the pan out. Then to unwrapped a steak and put it on the pan. He'd tell him to pick out a vegetable, and Jim would drag a chair to the refrigerator so he could stand on it to see into the freezer and make a selection.

Eventually Ken would roll out of bed and make his way downstairs to finish preparing the meal as Jim sat closely by working on his homework.

To this day, Jim has a love of cooking.

Both Linda and Jim said Ken was a gregarious guy, usually found in a good mood and ready with a joke.

"He was a very easy person to get along with," Linda said. "He was funny. And it was hard to get his temper up."

Jim didn't hesitate when asked to describe his dad's personality.

"He was Santa Claus without the beard," he said. "He was happy go lucky."

As for Jason, descriptions of what he was like weren't as simple.

"Jason was Jason," his mom said.

Linda said her younger son was often free-spirited and had a similar happy demeanor to his father. He had lots of friends and was always running around with them, she said.

He was also not big on planning ahead.

"He was last-minute Charlie," Linda said. "If he had a choral concert he'd tell me in the morning that it was that night and he needed me to take him."

Linda also said Jason was a very caring person. That's what led him to pursue a career in nursing. He was a licensed practical nurse, and worked for a time as a traveling nurse.

After cutbacks and changes in the medical field left him without a job, he decided to change paths. Again looking for a career that would let him help people, Linda said, he went back to school to become a minister.

Jim said he was never particularly close with his brother. When they were growing up, Jason was seldom found around the house.

He described his younger brother as impatient and impulsive with a deep stubborn streak.

"He wants what he wants when he wants it," Jim said.

And the future

It has been tough for Linda and Jim to come to terms with the fate that has befallen their family.

Linda's stint in the hospital meant she wasn't able to take part in burying her husband and son. That was done simply and quietly at a cemetery she hasn't yet been able to bring herself to visit.

She's been trying to keep herself busy, to keep her mind off of her now silent, empty house. A big chunk of her time and energy has been spent on cleaning out that house, saying she's planning on moving into something smaller and more manageable.

"You can't think," she said. "If you try to think you're going to make it worse. There's nothing I can do about it. Sitting here crying isn't going to help."

Jim said he's glad his mother has been so resilient. For him, he said, the ordeal hasn't seemed real.

For most of it he was in Maryland, communicating by phone. He did drive to Pennsylvania a few days before his brother died, stopping at his parents' home to pick up clothing for his mother.

"All she had at the hospital was her nightgown and house coat," he said.

Jim said he likely won't feel the full weight of the loss of his father and brother until he's able to gather once again with family.

"It's probably not going to hit me until I come back to Pennsylvania," he said. "When we get together as a family for Thanksgiving or Christmas or something and they're not there."

One emotion that Jim said he is feeling is anger. He's mad at people who aren't taking the pandemic seriously, at people who refuse to get vaccinated.

He fumes at people who think the devastation of COVID won't happen to them.

"It can be us," he said. "Every time I hear someone say something like that I want to go and smack them."