Dying alone: Coronavirus keeps family from loved ones at end
Associated PressBIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Don Pijanowski was not surrounded by loved ones when he died. Instead, the 87-year-old father of four, the blue-collar guy from Buffalo, New York, died in a hospital with only a nurse who stood near him and passed on his sons’ final message. It wasn’t a fitting end for the man whose family remembered him as a hard worker who never cut corners, a genuinely kind person who kept his late wife’s greeting on his telephone answering machine so her voice would fill the house each time the phone rang. That’s just what I would want.” John Pijanowski, who teaches in an educational leadership program at the University of Arkansas, said it felt wrong not to be with his father at the end. “It’s the best we can have.” ___ Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak ___ Follow Reeves on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Jay_Reeves