Jada Judkins, 20
I feel like people are taking it more serious than before, but I do honestly invite people to not fall for the phases, like everything is peachy cream and rainbows. Wash your hands and care about your hygiene. It’s fine the state is opening back up, but stay home if you feel sick. It’s like you’re driving, you have to keep yourself safe and other people as well—do the same when you go into the store. Someone else might have to go through what I went through because you don’t know if you have COVID.
When we got the phone call that he was taken to the emergency room they didn’t say what was wrong, but the hospital called the next morning and said he tested positive for COVID. He went to the emergency room on a Sunday, and Thursday I got a call that he was moved to the intensive care unit, and on Friday he texted me “I’m still alive.” He had a great sense of humor. He passed away that evening, it was so quick.
Lost brother Wilbert Reynolds, 81, on April 1
Our family gets together at my aunt and uncle’s house on Sundays and they cook a huge dinner and someone had the virus and they contracted it [in the spring]. My aunt ended up on a ventilator at the same time as my brother and they couldn’t pull her off. My aunt passed in April and my uncle passed away just a week ago. He was home in hospice. His liver was gone. My aunt was in her 60s and my uncle was 82. They were all healthy. They just didn’t know that they had it and by the time they got help it was too late.
Lost mother Arlola Rawls, 81, on April 10
