On Sunday, March 28, hospital staff joined family members and elected officials to remember Freda on the first anniversary of her passing, and to honor all front line workers who sacrificed their lives to help others amid the pandemic.

 

According to her family, Freda, who was just 51 when she died, immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana in the late 1980s and earned her nursing degree in 1990. The wife and mother of two sons and a daughter was working a a head nurse at Jacobi Hospital’s psychiatric unit when the coronavirus engulfed the borough.

 

Kwame A. Ocran, Freda’s oldest son, told those who had gathered, “Today, we’re here to remember our heroes. We’re here to salute those who have dedicated their lives to the service of others. Our memories of Freda live on in celebration and not sorrow.”

 

Her son continued, “At the dawn of the pandemic, I remember urgently pleading with her and asking her to stay home and consider herself. She responded, ‘I can’t, I have to go to work. I’m a healthcare worker.’ This heroism is a testament to who my mother was.”

 

Kwame said his mother was the center of his world, and recalled memories of being at Hunter College and leaving Manhattan to travel up to the Bronx to Jacobi to see his mom for a couple hours at a time. “While she was here, she was the life of the party,” he said. “She worked with everyone with such aplomb and dignity. She worked and dedicated herself to her job, despite all the politics that happened in the American workplace.”

 

Gesturing to images of his mom, held up by her colleagues during the ceremony, he added, “My mother was supernatural. She was a diva. She often told me, ‘Kwame, don’t you know, I’m the queen?’ And look at her; she is so regal.”

Meanwhile, Joseph Ocran, Freda’s heartbroken husband, also from Ghana, fought back tears as he recalled how he was restricted from visiting his wife at Lincoln Hospital, after she called him to let him know she had contracted the coronavirus, and before receiving the news of her death, which he said he received one morning at around 4.20 a.m.

 

“They called me. I was in my living room sleeping, but I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I kept thinking about her. I got up and went to stay in the bedroom and the call came from Lincoln.” As he struggled to get the words out, the grieving father’s two sons reached out their hands and placed them on their father’s shoulders to console him.

 

Wiping away tears, Ocran continued, “I firmly believe one day we will meet again.” He added, “She was a good person, a very, very good person. She was a very vocal person. She did not take this work to play. She was my everything. When the pandemic started, she would say, ‘Don’t go outside. Stay home.’ We didn’t know what was going on. That’s the thing.”

 

Ocran said he was heartbroken because he knew most of the patients that were put on ventilators didn’t come off them, adding that he also knew the nurses were fearful of taking care of the COVID patients, but did so anyway.

 

Fellow registered nurse, Flandersia Jones, of BronxCare Health System, formerly Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, where both she and Freda once worked, fumed, “We should not be standing here today mourning a life, somebody that gave up herself, somebody that took care of patients, just because of a lack of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) or lack of staffing.”

 

Jones said her last memory of Freda was of her running towards her, and that she still has that picture of her in her mind. “A beautiful garden stands alone, missing the one who nurtured it because Freda nurtured everybody she came across,” she said. “But now Freda is gone, her flowers still bloom.”

 

Among calls of “Amen,” from the crowd, Jones continued, saying Freda loved every flower, loved her family, loved her patients, and loved her co-workers. “She was part of God’s plan, so, when it was her time, he reached down his hand, looked through the garden, searching for the best, and he sure took the best away from us,” she said. “That’s why he found Freda. It was her time to rest.”

 

She added, “Time flies, memories can never erase what Freda will forever be in our hearts, for the blessing your memories will be treasures. Your selfless sacrifice will never be forgotten. You will be missed beyond measure. Thank you.”

 

Assemblywoman for the 80th assembly district, Nathalia Fernández, who is currently running for Bronx borough president, also addressed those in attendance, lamenting past decisions taken to restrict funding for hospitals, saying, “Our nurses and doctors and our healthcare workers put everything on the line, and it is a disgrace that in that time when we were entering turmoil, we cut the budget.” She continued, “I didn’t, but the administration felt it was the time to do so.”

Fernández added, “Now, a year later, we have a chance to fix it, to pass safe staffing so our nurses aren’t overworked and our patients are taken care of with dignity and grace, to fully fund our hospitals, so they have every resource available to make sure that our patients and our health care workers are protected.”

 

She said New York had to continue to look forward and to make sure it didn’t go back to the same place it was in a year ago and to make sure people didn’t continue to lose loved ones.

 

Members of the New York State Nurses’ Association, who organized the memorial, echoed that sentiment. They are currently pushing for the passage of the “Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act,” which was introduced in the New York State Assembly in early January, and calls for minimum standards in the patient-to-care ratio at both hospitals and nursing homes across the State.

 

During the ceremony, Councilman for the 13th City Council district, Mark Gjonaj, who is stepping down from office at the end of his current term, presented a New York City Council Citation to the Ocran family in honor of Freda’s service.

 

During his prepared remarks, Kwame Ocran described his parents as pilgrims who had come to the U.S. and discovered a new world. He said that last year, when he lost his mother, he was in shock. “I had no idea what I was going to do so, I wrote a couple of poems that I want to share with you today,” he said.

 

An extract from “April Showers” reads, “Take your loved ones and hold them close, because when they’re gone, they’re missed the most. Take heed and run like the wind. Life is an offer they can rescind.”