SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
and had a son, now 27, and a daughter, 34.
On Nov. 25, 2020, Marlon, who had been
overweight and had pneumonia a few years
ago, couldn’t catch his breath. The Lucases
sat in their car outside an urgent care facility,
waiting to be permitted into the building
under covid rules. Three days later, his
coronavirus test came back positive. He was
told to get to the emergency room. Five days
later, Dana, who in the meantime was herself
diagnosed with covid, got a call: Get to the
hospital right away.
She was greeted with condolences.
For the next year, Dana said, “I was so sick
of hearing the news, too many people....
And then you hear people who don’t believe.
How could you not believe it? Let me tell you
what I lost. Without any kind of warning. You
at least have the chance to get a mask. You
have the chance to get a vaccination.”
Dana bears no anger toward those who
won’t get vaccinated. “I can be angry over a
lot of things — the fact that my husband isn’t
here,” she said. “Why waste my anger on
somebody who doesn’t care? I know what I
have, and I know what I lost, and I refuse not
to wear a mask outside of my house.
“I’m forced to go it alone. Every time I go
into my car now, I am forced to go alone, by
myself.”FAMILY PHOTOStwo decades, has seen the change, too. “We
didn’t trust each other anymore,” she said,
not even on leaving a clean bus for the next
driver. “I didn’t trust people to wipe it down.
You’d re-wipe it.”
Barber went back to grade school with
Lucas, five decades of shared life — recess
high jinks, school dances and everyday
stories at the East Liberty bus garage about
what happened on their routes.
On Dec. 18, 2020, Barber helped carry his
friend’s casket.
“I never imagined I’d lose anyone to covid,”
Barber said. “I wasn’t afraid of covid because
of my faith. I trust in Jesus Christ. But I did
what they said: I wore the masks, I’d wash my
hands.”
Barber got the vaccine because his mother
is 83 and because his friend was stolen from
him by the virus.
At the house Dana Lucas shared with her
husband of 34 years, her life has been a blur
since Marlon died. “We went everywhere
together,” she said. “Now I’m the designated
driver for no one.”
Around the house, strange things have
happened since her husband died. “Some-
times I’m sitting in my bedroom and I get a
whiff of cologne,” the scent Marlon wore, she
said. “And I think: ‘Thank you for letting meknow you are here.’ ”
For six months after Marlon died, Dana,
59, slept in her son’s old room. When she
finally moved back into their bedroom, “I
changed the whole room, the bedding, the
way it looked... I slept across the bed. Not
like we did, side by side.”
Marlon remains everywhere his wife goes.
Dana, a claims auditor for UPMC, a major
health system in Pennsylvania, now takes the
photos at social events. “Marlon always took
the photos,” she said. “That was his thing.”
“I’m still a mom, but what is my purpose?”
she asked. “I’m a new grandma — is that my
new purpose? I’m just at a loss sometimes.”
Their house was paid off, and they were
looking forward to their reward, retiring to
the Maryland countryside, the culmination of
a life together that began when Dana “pursued
him on my 21st birthday,” she recalled. She’d
celebrated first with her family, then skipped
out later that night to find Marlon and his pals
at the spot where they hung out.
Although Marlon had a girlfriend at the
time, Dana stepped up and said, “It’s my
birthday, and can I have a kiss?” He said yes.
Months later, after Marlon and his girl-
friend split, he and Dana visited an amuse-
ment park together, spoke on the phone and
started dating officially. They married in 1987They gathered in the Local 85 meeting
room, people who drive the bus for
the Allegheny County Port Authority,
listening once again to the recording
Karima Howard has saved on her phone, the
sound of the dispatcher calling out to driver
Marlon Lucas:
“Traffic to all units, please clear the air for
an important message.” After a silence, the
dispatcher makes the official announcement:
“Operator Marlon Lucas is out of service....
You will be missed by all.... Over and out.”
Lucas was 57 and three years from retire-
ment when he became the first of seven
members of the Pittsburgh-area drivers union
to park his bus and never return because of
covid. When he died in December 2020, the
county’s other drivers lost their organizer, the
guy who put together Christmas parties, high
school class reunions, the bowling league,
even daily lunches in the crew room.
When Lucas died, the union lost its sense
of unity, Howard said: “It sounds so simple,
but Marlon was able to bring everyone
together.”
Everyone felt his absence, said driver
Frank Barber. “That crew room was empty.
There was no socializing.” The card games
and cookouts in the parking lot stopped.
Howard, who knew Lucas for more than○ The beloved bus driver