Her father's death from COVID-19 the latest tragedy for Blue Point woman

Jennifer McNamara became a widow with a 2-year-old son when her husband, an FDNY firefighter, died of ailments related to the 500 hours he spent at Ground Zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Now, a decade later, the Blue Point resident has lost her father to another great calamity of our time: COVID-19.

The double tragedy has left her emotionally devastated, and struggling to keep running the community foundation she established to honor her husband, whose name adorns the street where she still lives.

“It’s horrifying” and difficult to escape since the news is constantly about the coronavirus, said McNamara, 52.

“When I lost my husband, it was so public,” partly because her spouse, John McNamara, 44 when he died in 2009, was a highly visible leader of the fight to get the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act passed in Congress. The law provided testing and medical treatment to those sickened with World Trade Center-related health conditions.

“Here, too, it is this very public way of trying to grieve and mourn and wrap your head around something while at the same time you are watching it every day on TV,” she said. “You can’t get away from it to get to a place of peace in your head.”

Her father, George Siegel, 89, was among the early victims to die on Long Island from complications caused by COVID-19. She took him to Stony Brook University Hospital on March 13, with what appeared to be pneumonia. Ten days later, on March 23, he was dead.

It was a dizzying series of events, since the coronavirus pandemic was still a relatively new phenomenon on Long Island and around the country. When Siegel was admitted to the hospital, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had not yet issued his New York "pause,” shutting down businesses and schools.

That went into effect March 22.

Siegel was in relatively good condition and remained active, McNamara said.

“He was by far one of the physically strongest people I have ever met of his age," she said. "And mentally, he was not ready to go."

McNamara and Siegel talked two days into his hospital stay about how he wanted her to handle his medical affairs.

Dying “was not an option,” she said. “He thought he was going home.”

Suddenly, that final weekend, she got a call from the hospital telling her his systems where shutting down, and he was going to die.

McNamara said she has no idea how her father contracted the coronavirus, since no one infected spent much time with him.

“I still feel like I can’t wrap my head around exactly what happened. It was in the early days, so things were completely chaotic,” she said. “The doctors and nurses were amazing to the extent that they had a handle on what was going on at the time … In those days nobody seemed to have a clue” about the emerging virus.

Siegel had been a pillar for McNamara after her husband’s death in 2009, serving as a surrogate father to the couple's son, Jack.

“He was the father figure my son didn’t have,” she said. “He was really the only man that was constant in his life.”

As Jack grew older, the two shared a love of baseball, and Siegel, a Yankees fan, even started following his grandson's team, the Mets, so they would have something to talk about.

Siegel regaled Jack with stories of his days during the Korean War, when he served as a member of the United States military police in Italy. He showed up at Jack’s school plays, concerts and baseball and lacrosse games.

Siegel served as McNamara’s sounding board for everything, since her husband was gone. They spoke or saw each other every day.

After Siegel died, the coronavirus pandemic moved into full-fledged crisis. McNamara was able to have a small indoor service at a funeral home and an outdoor graveside service at Blue Point Cemetery with military honors and fewer than 10 people attending.

They put the funeral on Facebook live and Zoom.

It was the same cemetery where McNamara buried her husband. His funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan attracted hundreds of mourners, including uniformed FDNY members.

McNamara went on to create the Johnny Mac Foundation, named after her husband and initially devoted to creating a center for youths in the Bayport-Blue Point area.

The youth center was among a handwritten list of wishes John McNamara had put together in case he died. His wife found it hidden in his hospital bag after his death from cancer and other ailments.

The foundation eventually expanded to helping 9/11 first responders with their health needs.

McNamara recently moved the foundation’s headquarters out of her home and into a cottage on the grounds of a former convent in Blue Point that is becoming the community’s new public library.

From there, she is trying to carry on the mission in her husband’s memory while at the same time grieving the loss of her father.

“Whatever it was, he was my go-to because I had nobody else,” she said. “It’s a huge void that I have.”