‘All that’s gone’: Uncertain future for graduating Sacramento State student

Jasleen Takhar sobbed at the kitchen table.

There would be no graduation. Takhar had spent three years grinding at Sacramento State, the first in her family to graduate with a four-year degree. Grandma’s flight from Arizona was already booked, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t safe to fly. Her father stewed in his bedroom. Takhar was devastated.

The coronavirus pandemic has already taken away so much.

Takhar missed her friends. She missed carpooling together from Elk Grove up Highway 99, to classes on contemporary issues in criminal justice and administrative management. She missed grabbing a bite at Peony Palace, and watching movies at the local Cinemark.

On Friday nights, they’d splurge and get tacos at Canteen Alley or Zocalo. If the weather was good, Takhar and her friends would rent Jump bikes and race through downtown Sacramento.

“All that freedom,” Takhar said. “All that’s gone.”

The campus Starbucks laid her off back in March. Two years of work ended with “a breakup text” in a group chat with her boss. The money wasn’t great, but the lack of extra spending money made her uneasy. “Can I really spend that $6 on Jamba Juice?” she said.

Takhar tried filing for unemployment but the website has been down lately. “They say they’re working on it,” Takhar said, but she’s not so sure.

She needed a job to afford medical school. She dreams of becoming an anesthesiologist. But leads on a job after college to pay for the tuition dried up at the start of the pandemic.

Takhar had aced an interview for a special agent position. She was supposed to move on to the next round, but the job isn’t even listed online anymore. No one’s hiring.

“All of them say we have it on pause,” Takhar said. “When is the pause going to be lifted?”

She hadn’t always wanted to be a doctor. But two years ago her little brother Jevin got sick, then really sick.

The Tamiflu doctors had prescribed for a case of influenza caused a severe reaction, burning him “from the inside out,” she said. Takhar’s mother spent 18 hours a day by his bedside at UC Davis Medical Center, as he became pocked with rashes and scars. “You think, ‘it’ll never happen to me,’ ” Takhar said. “Then this happens.”

Months later, her little brother is still healing. The reaction to the drug weakened his immune system. Every time Takhar returns from a trip to Target, or a walk around the block with her puppy, Kylo, she toss her clothes in the wash and showers immediately. She worries what she might be bringing home.

Doctors saved Jevin’s life. Takhar was inspired. She wanted to help others, and she couldn’t wait for medical school. Last fall, she started volunteering at the hospital. Four hours a week she played with children in the pediatrics ward, helping them and their parents get more comfortable in unfamiliar environment.

“Those patients would smile,” she said, “and you knew you were making their days better.”

Like everything else, the pandemic put an end to the volunteer program, too.

These days, Takhar thinks a lot about the doctors and nurses who cared for those children, and the ones who care for coronavirus patients.

“They have families of their own,” she said. People they need to protect, just like Takhar and her family have to protect Jevin.