'Book for our times': Wayne woman adds sister's story to collection on COVID victims

WAYNE — Jean Sime knows just about everything there is to know about Vivian Meitzler, her beloved sister.

She knows about her crush on Donny Osmond and that her favorite place to get frozen custard was Kohr's, on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. She is familiar with her quirky obsession with rubber ducks — that when she used to see one at a novelty shop, or ready to pop loose in a claw machine at an arcade, she had to add it to her collection.

And she knows, better than anyone else, that her big sister was an incredible human being.

Meitzler, a health care worker from Bloomfield, died at 60 years old on April 16, 2020. She is among 19 loved ones from around the nation, and as far away as the U.K., celebrated in a new collection of stories, titled "Voices-19: Their Legacies Live On." All the subjects of the book succumbed to COVID-19 complications.

"Unless someone experiences this," Sime said, "and God forbid, I'd never wish this on my worst enemy, they'll never truly understand the pain that this is."

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Now that her sister is gone, Sime said, she wants the entire world to know about her as completely as she did.

"This book is needed, and it's not just the COVID community who needs it," said Sime, a township resident who wrote its first chapter about her sister. "It's a book for our times."

Each chapter that follows in the 308-page book is dedicated to a different loved one, and all were penned by grieving relatives. For example, a chapter that recounts the life of the late Louis Sarrel, of Rockaway Township, was written by his widow, Marla Sarrel, a second-grade teacher for the Roxbury K-12 district.

Sarrel said it is important to tell her husband's story because everyone who died of COVID-19 has been "known as a statistic" since the pandemic started. "It bothered me from the beginning that they were just a number," she said. "I needed to make sure that he's never just a number — that he's a person."

Sime, a former banking executive, said the book should appeal to any reader, since everyone has been affected by the pandemic. "This book is part of history because the pandemic is part of history," she said.

The idea for the book was envisioned by Brenda E. Cortez, an author from Franklin, Wisconsin, a small city about 17 miles south of Milwaukee. She owns a publishing company, BC Books, and she created a series of children's books that feature a character known as Howl the Owl.

Cortez and Sime are friends who met through a social media network of organ donors and transplant recipients.

Sime had a kidney transplant in June 2019, and Cortez is a kidney donor.

After they connected, Sime contributed to another book by Cortez, titled "Because of Organ Donation." Its approach is like "Voices-19" — multiple writers, in this case 25 donors and transplant recipients, shared stories about how their lives changed after their procedures.

Sime started to collaborate with Cortez on "Voices-19" a year after her sister's death to help her mourn the loss. Eighteen grieving relatives of other loved ones, including the mother of a 13-year-old girl who died in Lawton, Oklahoma, were also invited to contribute.

This book is needed, and it's not just the COVID community who needs it.

Jean Sime, of Wayne

Most of the co-authors met Sime through online support groups.

Mary Cabanillas, however, said she has known Sime for decades. She was a teenager when they met at McDonald's; they worked together at the fast-food restaurant and became friends. She contributed to "Voices-19" by writing a chapter about her late mother, Carmelina Cabanillas, an Italian immigrant who settled in Belleville.

"I felt it was the least that I could do to honor her," said Cabanillas, of Nutley, now the tax collector for Belleville. "For me, she was just the most amazing person. She was everything wrapped in one."

She wrote in her chapter that her mother's favorite holiday was Christmas and how, each holiday season, she would turn their dining room into a "winter wonderland" by "tirelessly creating a Christmas village" — a "spectacular work of art."

"She could make a roll of toilet paper look beautiful," Cabanillas said.

She explained that putting her most intimate thoughts on paper was difficult, but Cortez was there every step of the way to coach her through the writing process, during much of the summer and fall of last year. They had deadlines to meet, and word limits to respect.

But even for Sarrel, who said she could "write well from her heart," the process was emotionally draining. "Trying to write what I thought he would want in a story was very hard for me," she said of her husband's wishes. "I think that, if I did it over again, I might change it at least 17 more times."

Although it was not easy, Sime said she found the process to be cathartic.

"I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it so many times because I wanted it to be perfect — because it's dedicated to her," said Sime, who now works for Cortez on a freelance basis. "This death isn't like any other kind of grief that you experience, because there's no closure. We're just trying to figure out how to live without her, but that's why we have the book."

"Voices-19" includes photos of each loved one and his or her family, as well as a how-to section on surviving grief by Rachelle Coffey, a mental health therapist from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. To purchase a Kindle version or paperback copy of the book, visit amazon.com or bcbooksllc.com/voices19.

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: [email protected]

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Wayne NJ woman's sister included in COVID book of remembrances