A Texas four-year-old has been left an orphan after both of his parents died from coronavirus within 100 days of each other.
The soon to be five-year-old, Raiden Gonzalez, lost his mother Mariah, 29, to the virus in October, just a few months after his father, Adan, 33, passed away from the same virus.
“He misses his mom since he was a mama’s boy,” Rozie Salinas, his grandmother, told NBC News. “Just this morning, he told me that he wishes he had his mom back, and he just wanted her back.”
“I mean, what do I tell him?” Salinas, who was the mother of Raiden’s mother, Mariah, told the outlet.”You know, so I just told him that they’re now angels watching over us and protecting us.”
Though still grieving, Salinas said she wants to make her grandson’s fifth birthday, on November 28, something memorable. Her and her sister came up with the idea of a drive-by celebration, which she said is shaping up to be pretty big.
“We have several truck clubs, bikers, Mustang clubs, classic cars, Jeep clubs, plus the fire department. It’s going to be a huge turnout,” Salinas told the network.
Tragically, the whole ordeal began when Raiden’s dad first contracted COVID-19 from a co-worker. A few days after testing positive, Adan was hospitalized. Health care workers told the family, “he was one of the two sickest at the hospital,” Salinas said. He died a few weeks later on June 26.
Then Mariah, Raiden’s mom, died suddenly on October 5, only hours after she started feeling ill. Salinas received a call from the hospital days after her daughter’s death letting her know Mariah tested positive for coronavirus.
Salinas is planning a memorial for her daughter and son-in-law after the holidays.
