HOLYOKE — When Kara Kapinos’ 91-year-old father, Ted, was dying of COVID-19 in 2020, she wasn’t able to get into the Soldiers’ Home, where he lived, to say goodbye. She and her husband had to wait in the parking lot while her mom, Helen, was granted access to say her last goodbye.
Her father, a longtime Massachusetts State Police trooper and Korean War veteran, died the next day without his family nearby, just like many of the more than 76 veteran residents of the Soldiers’ Home when the coronavirus swept through the home in March 2020.
On Thursday, the day that Kapinos, of Hadley, and other families agreed to a $56 million settlement with the state over the deaths of their loved ones, Kapinos said she finally felt some closure.
“We were able to have my father’s celebration of life, and that was one step of closure,” Kapinos said. “And now that this is over and the settlement is taken care of, it’s finally over. And it’s a relief. We can rest in peace and say everything is taken care of now.”
After the announcement of the settlement agreement on Thursday, some of the families affected by it expressed complicated feelings of relief and anguish, closure and reemerging sorrow.
“This is all just part of the grieving process,” was how Springfield’s Laurie Beaudette described it. She, too, missed out on the chance to be with her dad, 83-year-old Navy veteran and Holyoke native James Mandeville, as he lay dying of the virus at Holyoke Medical Center. “Every time there’s a break in the case, you can’t help but relive it all. It’s really, really gut-wrenching.”
Beaudette said the families she has spoken to are very grateful for the settlement and their attorneys’ work to achieve it. And she said the consensus among those she has spoken to is that it has validated what the involved family members already knew: “that the commonwealth failed our veterans; it caused most of them to die alone.”
“We the family members are bound together by this tragedy forever,” Beaudette said. “In a way, this tragedy has brought so many good friends into my life. They’re the only ones who really understand what I’m going through, and vice versa.”
Kapinos, too, had complicated feelings about the settlement. On the one hand, she said that the amount of money her family will receive makes her feel like her dad is still taking care of her mom, who lost a substantial amount of income from her father’s state pension. She said it also feels like the settlement brings some accountability for the state’s actions in failing to protect its veterans.
On the other hand, though, there is the pain that the tragedy caused.
“Nothing will bring my daddy back, and nothing will bring my daddy back to have his natural death — the one he was supposed to have,” she said. “Nothing can help us to have that experience.”
Now that a settlement has been reached, it is up to the state Legislature to pass a supplemental budget that Gov. Charlie Baker intends to file that will fund the settlement.
“It now needs to come to us,” said state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, whose district includes Holyoke. A veteran himself who has been vocal on the topic of the Soldiers’ Home, Velis said the settlement is just “step one” in the process.
“I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that this supplemental budget … is taken up expeditiously,” he said.
Velis said the families he has spoken to have expressed a sense of relief. But they are also pressing for the final passage of a bill that would tighten the governance and oversight of the Soldiers’ Home.
“It’s just a testament to their character,” Velis said. “Their concern is future families and that’s a special, beautiful thing.”
Beaudette said that for her, the settlement is on the “road to justice.” But she said she and other families want to see criminal charges stick against some of the former leadership of the Soldiers’ Home. She said she hopes people learn that the elderly and veterans deserve better treatment in society.
“Now the commonwealth is getting that message, but I hope the entire United States gets that message, too,” she said.
Kapinos said she also hopes that people learn from what happened at the Soldiers’ Home, where her father walked in mostly healthy in January 2020, and on April 7 was dead.
Kapinos laughed, though, thinking of the “great party” the family threw to celebrate her dad’s life. In typical Polish fashion, a polka band played and Kapinos placed Polish beer on each table as a centerpiece. She hung a card from each centerpiece with her dad’s face on it, together with a humorous saying: “In heaven, there is no beer and that’s why we drink it here.” She said that now the settlement has been reached, she plans to take one of those cards to her dad’s favorite spot in Bermuda and throw it in the water.
“Because this was done now,” she said. “Now it’s done and he can rest in peace.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.