An array of white flags on the civic center lawn on Peak Avenue represent 58 Morgan Hill residents who have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began in early 2020.
One was John Kenneth Miles—known to his great-grandchildren as “Grumpy”—who died on Christmas night at a local nursing home. Miles was a former elementary school teacher and gifted violin player who became a pilot at age 50, according to his daughter, Lesley Miles. He continued to fly and worked at an airport in Sonoma well into his 80s.
“As a parent, his adventurous spirit provided complexity,” Miles said at a July 1 White Flag Presentation outside City Hall. “We shared joy in nature, stories and, ultimately, simple visits the (previous) nine months separated by glass as we could not touch and pantomimed and tried to hear. He was truly present as he shared time and that ball-of-the-foot bouncing energy with grandchildren, and the greats too.”
John Miles died as a Covid-19 outbreak swept through the nursing home where he had lived the previous 10 months, Lesley said. He became sick about a week before Christmas Day, and was in hospice care a couple days later.
“It was shocking how quickly it happened,” Lesley said. “It’s a vicious virus. For some people it’s going to do nothing, and for other people it will kill them in a matter of days.”
Another of the white flags on the City Hall lawn is for Ed Gomes, who died from Covid-19 at a nearby hospital on Jan. 31. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks before his death.
Gomes grew up in Hawaii before moving to Santa Clara County, where he embarked on a junior high school teaching career, according to his daughter, Leslie Thompson.
In his retirement, Gomes was an avid golfer. Thompson enjoyed visiting her father at his west Morgan Hill home, where they would play cards, eat dinner and talk for hours.
“He was very delightful and very loving and very funny. And I miss that man,” Thompson said at the July 1 white flag event.
Behind the numbers
The white flags will remain on the civic center lawn throughout the month of July in honor of local victims of Covid-19. City officials held a ceremony at the site July 1, which was attended by the families of some of those who have died.
Council member Rene Spring said the idea of using white flags was to allow the survivors to write the name of their deceased loved one on a flag, perhaps with a short message.
Spring, who spearheaded the white flag tribute, wanted the display to illustrate the individuals and families affected by the pandemic—and not just a barrage of numbers and statistics.
“We’re up to 58 lives lost,” Spring said. “At a time when people couldn’t grieve the way they should be able to grieve. They couldn’t say goodbye to their loved ones. It was so heartbreaking. I didn’t want us to move forward without thinking of all the lives lost here in our community.”
Worldwide, about 3.96 million people have died from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. In the U.S., about 605,000 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus.
In Santa Clara County, 1,698 people have died with Covid-19, according to the county’s website.
City Manager Christina Turner said at the July 1 presentation that each of the white flags outside City Hill represents “a beloved community member that lost their lives to Covid.”
Mayor Pro Tem John McKay said the pandemic is “very real” for the families, friends and colleagues of 58 Morgan Hill residents.
“They’ve suffered the loss and sorrow because that family member won’t be there in the future to help guide them, to help create our community, to help make things good and alright. That smile, that nod, that wink will not be there for them in the future,” McKay said. “I’d like to make sure we have an opportunity…keep those memories alive so they will live on in us.”
The July 1 ceremony included additional statements from Council members Yvonne Martinez Beltran and Gino Borgioli, as well as Morgan Hill Police Chaplain Michael Burchfield.
Thompson and Lesley Miles shared their memories and support for the white flag display.
“I realized it was the first time we had been in a place where we even talked about what had happened,” Miles said after the ceremony.
The display is located on the civic center lawn between City Hall on the 17500 block of Peak Avenue and the Morgan Hill Library, 660 West Main Ave.
Memories
Morgan Hill resident Lesley Miles wrote the following about her father, John Kenneth Miles, and read it aloud at the July 1 White Flag presentation outside Hill City Hall:
John Kenneth Miles
aka Grumpy
July 27, 1926……………….December 25, 2020
I heard him leave. It was like someone had tossed a small rock against the side of the house. Not a pebble and definitely not a boulder but a crack, a thud.
That was earlier than the phone call at 1:35 am from hospice. The kind voiced nurse said, “ Mr. John Miles passed yesterday, Christmas night at 11:57.”
I had tried to close my eyes to sleep, my watch vigilantly recorded my heart rate 95, 91, 88 the low. It was not a night of peaceful rest, downstairs the birds nest fern had flown from the table and crashed to the floor.
And….
I knew the transition was afoot.
Covid-19 took him. Initially he wasn’t ready, but that didn’t mean he didn’t become ready. His last heard words by family, “Oh s**t.” In a call to his isolated hospital room, the littlest one had shared, after being specifically warned not to, “Grumpy, I am so sorry you are going to die.” Apparently a surprise, his reaction was not hard to understand. But, perhaps it gave him time to prepare. That was two days before he died.
Such a long life of curiosity; of people, dogs, cats, birds, plants, airplanes and friends. His smile included you and leveled the playing field, we are equal.
Several years ago at Christmas I’d asked him to teach us about music. A violin prodigy, he played a solo with the San Francisco philharmonic orchestra at 12, he shared his love of music. The iPad lesson started with the drum and then the flute, the pipes of Ireland, evolving prehistory. The beginnings of music through the ages, and then the evolution of his life experience of music unfolded. His favorite song ended our lesson, Imagine by John Lennon.
Music continually played in the background of his expansive life; flying his antique Taylor craft, driving Blanco, the 64 Chevy Impala convertible, hiking, traveling everywhere alone so that he could experience life and connection on his own terms. He never met a woman he wouldn’t flirt with nor a dog he wouldn’t pet.
In his late ‘70’s he got Lasic surgery in preparation for a month-long trip down the Colorado River at high cold water in March. Not for the faint hearted, he was worried he would lose his glasses and not be able to see the crests and valleys of the class 10 rapids. His dream to fly in the navy was curtailed by the damn glasses but eventually at 50 he became a pilot. Picking of course a taildragger, he flew across the country multiple times and then to Alaska above miles and miles of uncharted territory in his 80’s. Everywhere he went he made a friend and shared a joke…”Did you hear about the fire at the circus?….it was in tents!”
As a parent his adventurous spirit provided complexity. We shared joy in nature, stories, and ultimately simple visits the last 9 months separated by glass as we could not touch and pantomimed and tried to hear.
He was truly present as he shared time and that ball of the foot bouncing energy with grandchildren and the greats too. Loving teaching about everything from poetry to astronomy, his boundless interest in the world was at its best when shared with children.
It was raining as they moved his body to the coroner, Covid-19 has specific protocols that leave us lacking. I know that a drop of rain will land on his outstretched hand and he will look at it with wonder and joy, how beautiful, how ironic and how sad, tears fall, remember…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I am not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one…
