My youngest daughter Heather and our future son-in-law Gabriel were living with me and my husband when the pandemic lockdown started in March 2020. They had been high school sweethearts, dated for 6 years, and were finishing college and saving money for their wedding and future home. The four of us were buddies. The kind you just knew you would have for a lifetime. We enjoyed watching movies, cooking, going on long walks and just living life together.
During some of our long pandemic walks, I remember seeing the white ribbons tied around trees by neighbors wanting to show support for all the doctors and nurses. I also remember seeing teddy bears in the windows. They were put out as part of a scavenger hunt to occupy the children who could no longer attend school. We often found ourselves looking for them too as we walked along the sidewalk trying to make the best of a strange situation that we knew would not last forever.
Gabriel and Heather, who was three years younger than he, had delayed their engagement so she could focus on nursing school. By May 2020, however, he was finally ready to propose. We threw a party with face masks, hand sanitizer, and individually packaged meals, while we all sat outside in our backyard. It wasn’t the romantic gathering he wanted, but it would have to do under the circumstances.
Because Heather would be starting her nursing clinicals soon, our household was offered early access to the Covid19 vaccines in January 2021. After some thought, we opted to get them. We had no idea what Heather would be exposed to at the hospital, and by that point the Delta variant had become virulent and widespread, so we didn’t want to take chances.
Because of our schedules, my daughter went with her father, and Gabriel and I went together. We stood outside the nearby university in the cold, waiting in long 3-hour lines to get each of the two shots. Quietly I was concerned about the risks, but all three of my housemates had full faith in the medicine.
All three of them had been working outside the house during the lockdown, while I had been working from home. Since my daughter was going to be a nurse, she didn’t have much choice about getting the vaccine. My husband, a type-1 diabetic and 2-time cancer survivor, knew he wouldn’t be alive without medicine, so the decision was easy for him too. Gabriel… well he had been born with multiple life-threatening congenital heart and lung defects and had already undergone 4 major heart surgeries by the time I met him at 17 years old, so all those years of suffering had forged quite an old, wise and beautiful soul that wasn’t afraid of much. I, however, had a history of strong reaction to vaccines, but was an otherwise quite healthy 54 year old, so the risk of the new vaccines looked different to me. My concerns felt small and selfish compared to their bravery, though, and not much was known about the vaccinations yet, so I took their lead I did what I thought any caring person would do in the situation. I kept my concerns quiet.
The morning Gabriel and I were scheduled to get our second shot, I found him sitting at the top of the stairs. He had just learned that his stepfather had died unexpectedly. He had not seen his stepfather in some time, and sadly, there would not be a funeral for him until months after his death due to the restrictions on gatherings and challenges getting autopsies done. We would still get our shots that day, and while we stood in line, we spent our time talking about life, his stepfather, philosophy, the future, and what mattered most to us. Gabriel and I were already quite close, but that day was a turning point. He was no longer my future son-in-law. He was my son, and more importantly, one of my closest friends. Unfortunately, I reacted badly to the second shot later that day: pain, 106-degree fever, semi-consciousness, days of misery. Everyone else managed well, and I did finally recover with what appears to be no long-term effects.
During all this, the four of us spent much of that time planning every detail of their upcoming wedding. What else was there to do during a lockdown? We had the luxury of veering off deeply into rivers of overthinking through it all, but it didn’t matter. We were all having the time of our lives. Sadly, getting guests to come to the wedding proved more challenging than the planning. People were still afraid to travel and attend large gatherings in June 2022, but even with a smaller guest list, that warm day in June 2022 turned out to be one of the happiest days of all our lives.
Since we lived in Texas, life mostly returned to normal after their wedding. Heather and Gabriel had finally saved enough money for a down payment on a house by early March 2024 and were preparing to move out that summer. I was going to miss them deeply. I felt like we had lived a lifetime in a bubble together over the lockdown years and beyond, but I knew they were ready for an adventure of their own. Finally, after 11 years of waiting, they would be together preparing to start a family of their own.
On a Saturday evening late that March, Gabriel collapsed while helping a friend move. His heart stopped just 18 days before his 28th birthday. He received almost an hour of CPR. I had spent that day with my son and his fiancée visiting the venue for their upcoming wedding only 12 days away. Heather was to be a bridesmaid, and Gabriel the best man.
I remember hearing him leave the house that morning. Heather and my husband often worked on weekends, so I would usually come out of my room and talk with him for a while on Saturday. That morning, however, I was getting ready to leave with my son, so I only heard the door close behind him. I never spoke to Gabriel again. After two days on life-support, my sweet, innocent, 25-year daughter took her husband of less than 2 years off the machines, and he died that day. I have had a hole in my soul every day since.
Gabriel was a young male with a preexisting heart condition, and he was voluntarily vaccinated twice with Covid19 shots. We will never know if that played a role in his passing at only 27 years old. By then, too much had already gone wrong with his heart to sort it out, and it wouldn’t bring him back to pursue it. His body was donated to a local medical school to help train future doctors on his heart defect.
Since then, I have tried to forgive myself for my silence, but I don’t think I’m going to succeed at that. I take solace in the idea that my reaction to that second shot prevented any of us from getting booster shots, so maybe that bought us all a little more time together.
At almost 60, I am still here and missing him every day. I have 2 grandsons now to fill some of my time; the youngest’s middle name is Gabriel. For now, my daughter, Gabriel’s widow, still lives with us and the grief of losing her best friend and the future life they planned. The three of us remaining are still helping each other come to terms with what happened. In the most bittersweet way, I’m glad for extra years I got with my daughter.
I know the worldwide pandemic of 2020 will likely be written about in history books even though much about it is still debated or has already been forgotten. I suppose humanity may never find the courage or forgiveness to fully examine what we didright and what went wrong. For me, none of that matters anymore. For me, the pandemic will aways be remembered for the six hours I spent standing in line with my beloved and dearly missed friend, and I will be forever grateful for that.
This was very moving. So moving, it moved me to become a paid subscriber. Thank you for sharing this story. This covid stories season is surely to become an extremely important part of the historical record, and it was for that reason I started paying.
It is hard to even believe some of this stuff happened! We have been raising a Pfizer hot lot orphan for the last 5.5 years, which is an ever present reminder that the madness was, in fact, real. She is the daughter of my wife's best friend who was the maid of honor at our wedding. Mercifully, her death saved my family from taking any of the shots, while simultaneously ruining nearly every friendship in Berkeley, and destroying my once high civic standing here in Berkeley.
I thought the first covid story published might move some people that turned their back on me during 2021, 2022 and beyond, so I forwarded it to half a dozen of my old friends with a note apologizing for my role in the destruction of our friendships. I thought, incorrectly, that it may yield a response and possibly some healing. This story has that same power, but with zero replies to the last attempt, I guess I have learned, yet again, that those friendships are gone forever.
In any event, prayers to you and everyone contending with these impossibly difficult situations.
I'm so deeply sorry that you lost Gabriel.
I feel the tears coming. Again.
For all our lost boys. And for all the others too, who meant so much to someone else as well, and who were cheated out of a longer life.