this year i lost the most important
person in my life
his name was trevor he was my brother he
was 28 years old when he passed
he was pre-diabetic and he
also had autism even though he was 28 he
had the brain age of a six-year-old he
would walk up to people on the street
and say hi
i'm trevor what's your name recently i
lost my dear friend karissa to covet 19.
carissa would have been 31 this coming
april carissa did have type 1 diabetes
you wouldn't even know she had it until
she eventually
told you about it because she needed to
take care of it before we went out to
eat or did something fun together
my mother she was a registered nurse she
had just turned 65 and we
wanted her to retire so bad she used to
sing at work with her patients
i lost my mom at the age of 43 years old
that's my mom like you only get one she
had faith that i was gonna make it yeah
i'm nobody telling me to keep going on
but i had no choice because i know she
would have wanted me to keep going on
i lost my dad marty to cope at 19 on
easter sunday
my dad at first glance was very tough
very new york when you got to know him
he's very sensitive
in march both of my grandparents were
diagnosed with kovac
and unfortunately a few weeks later my
grandfather jerusalem jones
passed away he loved to work on cars if
you're from the hartford area
if you have a junker if you have a beat
up car my grandfather would probably
fix it he did your brakes he did your
oil something like that
i was not able to say goodbye to carissa
we just always
left off
maybe when we have a service i'll feel
like it's real i saw you but for now
i still listen to his voicemail he still
watches videos and uh that's probably
the hardest part
think if my dad were watching this video
he'd probably
make fun of me for crying because he
always did and he'd be like you look so
beautiful when you cried i'd be like can
you not
the nurse who was taking care of her
like
she was so sweet and if i could give her
a hug if i was allowed to i would hug
her because she was
so nice i'm glad that even though she
wasn't with her her real family she was
you know she was at the hospital like
most of the time so
that was like her her second family his
organs just shut down one by one
first it was his kidneys then his liver
and his lungs my dad called me
and he said you know the doctors say
that the only thing that keeping
trevor alive is the ventilator like they
ask me permission
to pull the plug so i'm gonna do it and
i remember like just
packing whatever i could find in a bag
running to the greyhound station
hopping on a bus and just hoping and
praying that i would make it there
before trevor died and
when i was halfway to baltimore my dad
called me and he said
trevor died the hardest part of
losing my dad is probably
forgetting that he's gone and then
remembering again
losing a loved one in a pandemic
that we're still in is a nightmare that
keeps happening every day
my heart goes out to anyone and everyone
who lost someone this year to covet 19.
these numbers that you see on the news
they're people
they're your sister or your brother or
your friend or your parent
or your grandparent they had a name
they had a heart and they had a soul and
they're not just a number
or a statistic or a reason why you can't
go out to eat
i wish that people understood how
preventable
all of this is i wish that everyone
would just comply and wear their masks
everyone wants a part of normal back
everyone wants to be able to do the
things that they used to do
it's like yeah what about all of us who
are grieving we want normal too
we want the normal with our family
members that we're alive
this is um my altar that i built for my
brother
and when i speak to him i talked to him
my dream dreams my goals my aspiration
and just making my mom proud
because i know she's watching me
love the people that are still here
virtually of course but uh
love them and let them know how much you
care express love
often and as freely as possible
even in the darkest days the light is
still there
we look upon
[Music]
should tumble and fall and the mountains
should crumble to the sea
i won't cry i won't cry
no i won't shed a tear
just as long as you stand
[Music]
just as long as you stand
stand by me
you