Column: Chicago media personality Jeanne Sparrow lost her dad to COVID-19. She’d give anything to hear his take on the unrest sweeping the nation.

Jeanne Sparrow tells stories for a living: her stories, our stories, Chicago stories.

You may know her from radio station V-103, where she’s a warm and gracious host. Or you may remember her from WCIU’s “You and Me This Morning,” which she co-hosted with Melissa Forman until 2017. Maybe you remember her from her WGCI days. She’s been a Chicago media staple for three decades, having moved north from New Iberia, Louisiana, to attend Northwestern University.

Her beloved dad, Allen Sparrow, died from COVID-19 in May. He was 82 and still living in New Iberia when he passed away. I asked Jeanne to share some of his stories.

Allen Sparrow was a devout Catholic, a U.S. Air Force veteran, a devoted Morton Chemical Co. employee who painted houses on the side, and a loyal, loving husband and friend. He didn’t know a stranger. You called him if you needed a ride. You called him if you needed advice. He was kind.

He was also a storyteller.

“He is absolutely my inspiration for choosing this career,” Jeanne Sparrow said.

Before he contracted COVID-19, he lived out his final months in a New Iberia nursing home. Frontotemporal dementia had started to rob him of his speech and his ability to live independently. His wife and Jeanne’s mom, Ethel Sparrow, had passed away in 1997

“My dad was one of those people who, even in the nursing home, went out and found jobs to do,” Jeanne Sparrow said.

Here’s a story:

One of the employees who handled the nursing home’s payment plans was on maternity leave when Jeanne moved her dad there.

“She called me to talk about billing one day,“ Jeanne recalled, “and she said, ‘I’ve got to tell you, Miss Jeanne, I thought your father was a volunteer here. I said, “Who is this nice man who sits outside my office and pushes people around in their wheelchairs?” It took me two weeks before I realized he was a resident.’

“That was my daddy,” Jeanne said.

COVID-19 struck him with alarming speed. His fever spiked on a Sunday, and by Wednesday, he was hospitalized with double pneumonia. He died 11 days later. Jeanne Sparrow, his only child, had to say goodbye via FaceTime.

“COVID happens so breathtakingly quickly and is so brutally silent,” she said. “My dad was snatched away so quickly.

“And at the same time,” she said, “I’m grateful that he didn’t suffer for a long time with the portion of dementia that I’ve seen can be very painful.”

Her maternal aunt had severe dementia, and Jeanne Sparrow had been bracing for her dad’s final years to be tortuous.

“I have no words for how horrible that is,” she said. “If I have any enemies, I wouldn’t wish it on them. It’s so cruel, and COVID cut that from the picture.”

But she’d give anything to call him up and discuss the stories and unrest and incremental progress (maybe?) that’s sweeping the nation.

“These are the times I really loved my dad’s perspective and looked to my dad for his perspective,” she said. “He was born in 1937. He would always say, ‘You know, baby, this is not the first time this has happened.’ I hate that I don’t have that perspective right now.”

Allen Sparrow’s mom was shipped off to live with cousins when her own mom died from the Spanish flu in 1918. He lived through a World War and the civil rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. One of Ethel Sparrow’s first cousins was a Freedom Rider in 1961.

Jeanne Sparrow can ask other relatives for those stories. And she will.

“But my dad’s voice is the one I miss the most,” she said.

I asked her what she’ll do on Father’s Day.

“I’m hiding on Father’s Day,” she said. “I may be fearing it more than I need to, but the way Memorial Day gutted me, the military tributes, I’m not looking forward to it. Not having him to call will be difficult.”

“We’re all looking for answers right now,” she said. “And too many of us are looking with our minds already made up.”

Sometimes people’s stories can nudge our minds open a sliver, just enough to let some light in. Especially when those stories are told by wise and generous souls, like Allen Sparrow, who’ve seen a thing or two. I wish his daughter could call him on Father’s Day, on any day, and hear his stories and share them with us.

The world was lucky to have him in it for 82 years. And maybe we’re on the cusp of making it better for the people who come after him. Maybe that’s the story we’re writing right now.

Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

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