Background

Aubrey Saget

For Joan

Oil on panel

9 x 9 inches

2021

For Joan Marie Duda Kissane

1956-2020

Inspired by the words of Yuriy Reznik. Thank you to everyone who worked and continues to work tirelessly at Rush University Hospital, Chicago, Illinois.

I was so busy, I didn’t have a chance to say hello. Obviously, nobody expected that she was going to die.

When you know somebody personally it kind of makes it more impactful.

Her name was Joan Duda, she was married to one of the nurses who used to work with us, and she was his second wife. His first wife died from breast cancer a few years before.

In the initial stages of Covid they were just like overrun. She wasn’t supposed to be working at the bedsides. She was asked as a bedside nurse just to help. And she got Covid. It was a small hospital. She was doing okay. Then little by little she had to come where I worked. She was getting worse and worse and worse. She was put on the breathing machine--tried every possible treatment that was available, but to no avail. She was a healthcare professional.

- Yuriy Reznik, Emergency Room RN