After Memorial Day weekend, more businesses began to reopen and more people began venturing in large numbers. Priscilla García believes her parents were infected with Covid-19 during a trip to her neighborhood grocery store. The Rio Grande Valley has become a coronavirus hot spot that Priscilla describes as living in “hellfire pit”.
Symptoms arose quickly, but the couple initially tested negative for the coronavirus. Then Yolanda began to faint. Rolando developed flu-like symptoms. On June 28, the couple needed emergency help. They were taken to different hospitals.
A week later, on July 4, Rolando’s body “ended up closing itself,” said her daughter.
Four days later Yolanda suffered a heart attack and Priscilla had one last chance to speak to her mother.
“I just told her that Dad was waiting for her and that he was ready to take her with him,” Priscilla told CNN. “I knew they couldn’t be apart.”
Rolando and Yolanda García were children when they met in San Juan, Texas, a southern Texas border town. They became high school boyfriends, they went to their graduation party together. Rolando joined the army and returned to Texas to marry Yolanda.
The Garcias were together the entire time. They had three children. Rolando worked as a food broker and Yolanda had a beauty store next to her house.
Two wooden urns with the names of Rolando and Yolanda García sit at a table in the living room surrounded by a small bouquet of flowers, figures of angels and two portraits of a couple who spent their entire lives together.
Priscilla built the sanctuary for her parents at her home in San Juan, Texas, as her family waits for the worst of the coronavirus pandemic to pass so they can hold a memorial service.
Their children still cannot understand that the coronavirus pandemic took their parents away in what seemed like an instant. Priscilla hopes that people will find out about the tragedy and suffering her parents suffered and take the pandemic more seriously.
“It is very incredible and shocking,” said Priscilla. “For people who haven’t had it, be very careful because it will come for you. They are fine until they are not.”
The older Garcia’s were not the only ones who got sick. Priscilla became infected after spending several days caring for her parents before they went to the hospital. Priscilla’s husband and daughter were also infected, but they only felt mild symptoms. She has been quarantined at her parents’ house until the virus passes.
Yolanda’s sister was also affected with Covid-19 and is on a ventilator. The terrible experience of the Garcia family is a testament to how cruel the coronavirus has been to families in South Texas.
The pain inflicted on families is what Dr. Martin Schwarcz, a pulmonary physician, says is one of the surprising realities of this pandemic. Dr. Schwarcz critically treats patients with Covid-19 in various hospital intensive care units.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, more than 600 people died from the coronavirus in the Rio Grande Valley. The vast majority of them have died only in the month of July. The sudden increase in deaths is affecting the medical teams that treat patients. Nurses are emotionally drained as they endlessly pass bad news on to families.
Dr. Schwarcz recalled having to call a woman recently and give the news that her father was deteriorating rapidly and that he would probably not survive overnight. The doctor said the woman started crying and begged her not to let her father die because the virus had already killed her mother and sister.
“It is very difficult. We are seeing entire families in our communities devastated by the virus,” said Dr. Schwartz. “Many deaths within a single family. It is terrible.”
The Salvador and Imelda Muñoz saga captures the ruthless path that the coronavirus can take. Salvador, 91, and Imelda, 86, never ventured out of their homes. His children made arrangements for a home nurse to take care of them.
In June, the elderly couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. What they did not know is that their nurse’s son had been infected, then the nurse became ill and within days both Salvador and Imelda were also beaten with Covid-19, according to Marie Silva, the couple’s daughter.
The family says the 42-year-old nurse, who was the mother of three children, died 10 days after becoming ill.
Muñoz’s partner ended up in the hospital, but Silva says his mother was showing signs of improvement. The family began making plans for her to return home, but she suffered a heart attack.
Silva says what makes her mother’s death so difficult to accept is that the nursing teams were so overwhelmed with the patients that they were unable to respond to their mother in time.
“There were not enough staff to attend to her and she did not make it,” Silva told CNN. “It was horrible. He was upset. He was angry. She was already cold. No one had caught him.”
In another hospital room, Salvador got worse with each passing day. The family organized a final video call. With a nurse at her side holding a phone, Silva says that all of her children got together and thanked her for being a good father, that she was loved and would never be forgotten.
“He didn’t cry. He never cried. He is such a strong man,” Silva said. “But I could see the pain in his eyes.”
On July 10, Silva and her family gathered for her mother’s funeral. In the midst of the service, the family learned that Salvador had passed away. Three days later, the couple was buried together.
“His work here was done,” said Silva. “He was ready to go with his wife. He loved her. I know they are together and that my father would not have had it any other way.”
Families devastated by the coronavirus pandemic share the same theme and frustration that so many people around them do not take the pandemic seriously enough. They see too many people who don’t wear masks. Too many people filling restaurants or bowling alleys and too many people who believe they still see the pandemic as an exaggerated hoax.
These families have experienced the realities of this virus in depth. They have seen their loved ones suffering alone in the hospital rooms, out of breath until they breathe for the last time.
“That is what this virus does to you. It weakens you to the point that you cannot eat, you cannot drink. You can hardly breathe, you cannot speak. That is what I want people to know,” Silva said. .
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