Tara: A Small Business Owner Loses Her Husband to COVID-19
Photography by Erica Lee for SaverLife
She was struggling to keep her small business afloat when her husband passed away from COVID-19. By the time she contracted the virus, she no longer had health insurance.
Tara’s small business, which served school-aged kids, was decimated when the pandemic caused Newark public schools to shut down.
Her husband passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. Tara also contracted the virus and, without his health insurance, had to pay out of pocket for treatment.
Without her husband’s income, she is now fully reliant on her business to support herself. Tara slowly rebuilt her business over the course of 2020 and is hopeful to expand in 2021.
Dreams put on hold
Spring 2020 was supposed to be a season of celebration for Tara. After graduating from business school seven years earlier, she purchased a franchise for an after-school enrichment program called Bricks 4 Kidz. Now she was ready to expand into a new location.
But two days before the lease signing, the deal came to a crashing halt. Newark public schools had announced they were canceling all classes in response to the surging pandemic. Tara had no choice but to hit the brakes.
“If you are low on the totem pole you have five times more problems than anyone would have ever thought about.”
“I could see what was coming,” Tara said. “And I knew I needed to figure out how to get some money.” Three weeks later, her husband Daryl fell gravely ill, and a bad situation turned dire. “If you are low on the totem pole,” she said, “you have five times more problems than anyone would have ever thought about.”
Worried from the start
From the moment that news began spreading about a new deadly virus, Tara and her husband had been on alert. Daryl had conditions that made him high risk, and he had just recovered from an illness.
“When he got a slight infection, he got really short of breath, and his oxygen levels would dip really low,” Tara said.
Tara’s worries grew as news about the coronavirus worsened. Daryl didn’t have access to protective equipment at work, and there was no way for him to socially distance at a job that required screening people with a handheld wand.
Once the schools were shut down, Daryl was their only source of income. “There was a concern, but then he would tell me, ‘I have to work,’” Tara said. “He told me he was being extremely careful.”
But not long after Tara’s lease signing fell through, they got terrifying news. Someone at Daryl’s work had tested positive for COVID-19. Daryl was sent home to quarantine.
A rapid decline
Almost immediately, Daryl showed symptoms: a chill followed by sniffles, coughing, and fever. Despite his known exposure and health risks, he still needed a doctor’s note and an appointment to get a COVID test. Soon it hardly mattered. His oxygen levels were so low they had to go to the emergency room. Just gathering his overnight bag and Bible left Daryl out of breath.
It was April 6. The hospital parking lot was filled with large white tents, so Tara had to park in an ambulance driveway. No visitors were allowed so she hugged Daryl goodbye and waited until he was through the hospital doors to drive away. It was the last time Tara would see her husband alive.
Their final conversation via phone was just before he was put on a ventilator. She asked the hospital staff to keep his Bible close to him. “I told him, ‘You know I love you.’ Use this time to rest and build yourself up, so I can talk to you again next week.”
Daryl could barely speak, but he managed to say, “Whatever God wants, I’m good.” Tara called his pastor, and the three prayed together before Daryl was transferred.
“The doctor was on the phone crying with me.”
A few days later, a doctor called to say Daryl wasn’t doing well. They arranged a video call, but Daryl was intubated and couldn’t speak. Tara prayed and asked him to hang on.
That night the hospital called once more. “The doctor was on the phone crying with me and saying that he passed peacefully,” Tara said. Daryl died on April 18, 12 days after being admitted.
Moving forward
Tara scarcely had time to grieve before she was beset with more problems. Funeral homes were scared to pick up bodies of COVID victims. And since Daryl’s hospitalization, she’d been suffering severe headaches that were now unbearable. “I could hardly lift my head,” Tara said.
Four days after Daryl’s death, she tested positive for COVID herself. From quarantine, she tried to manage Daryl’s memorial and while being careful not to infect her mother, who lives in the apartment below her.
Then the bills started coming. With no income from Bricks 4 Kidz, Tara was overwhelmed. Daryl wasn’t paid for his time in the hospital. His insurance—which covered them both—expired just four days following his passing. By the time she recovered from her own illness, Tara was uninsured and facing a $1,100 bill to ontinue his health plan under COBRA. Her last doctor’s visit was uncovered.
Their church pitched in to help. Fortunately, her mother could pay her mortgage for a few months, and Tara got a small business loan to pay her part-time employees in May. But she still had to run up her credit cards to make ends meet.
“I am just grateful to God for putting all these people in our lives.”
Over the summer, Tara threw herself into her business. She set up virtual Zoom sessions and worked with the Newark school district to receive payment for work done at the beginning of the year. Without Daryl, Tara had to change how she thought about Bricks 4 Kidz.
“He was the safety net for my business,” Tara said. “My business expenses increase because now I really have to pay myself from the business.”
Tara secured a contract with Newark schools to provide programming for summer camps and slowly began booking contracts for 2021. She has been looking to give her employees more hours and even to rent new space again. She’s scared but appreciative of the support she’s received from her family and "Village", which includes church members, family, and friends, both near and far.
“I am just grateful to God for putting all these people in our lives because I don’t see how people do it without it,” she said. “I really don’t.”
If Tara and her husband had an option to receive paid family medical leave their financial circumstances could have been drastically improved. “Having paid family medical leave for 12 weeks instead of 12 weeks with no money is definitely better,” she said.