- Title: For children who lost a parent, the pandemic pain will never end
- Date: 6th May 2022
- Summary: CONVERSE, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (MARCH 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF URN AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF DAVID GARZA, WHO DIED OF COVID-19
- Embargoed: 20th May 2022 11:45
- Keywords: COVID-19 children coronavirus death toll million
- Location: MATTESON, ILLINOIS AND CONVERSE, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- City: MATTESON, ILLINOIS AND CONVERSE, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Health/Medicine,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA001265819042022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Aidan Garza often talks about his dad in the present tense, as if David Garza were still right across the living room, sitting in his favorite chair, calling the 12-year-old over to watch a Star Wars series.
As if he had never collapsed while out running errands on Dec. 30, 2020, in Converse, Texas.
As if he had never died of COVID, one of the now 1 million Americans to succumb to the pandemic.
"He's always a warm guy," says Aidan. "Every time I would hug him, I feel like I'm touching a cloud."
No government program at any level is tracking American children such as Aidan and his big brother Julius who have lost at least one primary caregiver to COVID, but researchers' estimates put the number at over 213,000 kids.
Deep racial disparities among kids orphaned by COVID reflect the course of a disease that has illuminated inequities in areas such as healthcare in the United States.
Native American children, for instance, are four times as likely to be a COVID orphan than white kids.
While many look forward to the end of the pandemic, families such as Aidan and Julius's show its profound and enduring impact.
"Our 'normal' is not going to be like anyone else's, because we lost someone," said Margaret Garza, Aidan and Julius's mother.
Sandra McGowan-Watts, whose husband Steven Watts died in May 2020, has been trying to maintain as much of her 13-year-old daughter Justise's routine as possible.
Last summer, when the bushes in her yard needed to be trimmed, Justise found her dad's hedge trimmers and got to work.
"She does the things that he would do," Sandra says.
Aidan and Julius Garza had counseling after their dad died.
Aiden peppers his conversations about his dad with the lessons he has learned from therapy on how to confront his grief.
In talking about his heart and how much he should be thinking about his dad, Aidan says "we always got to save a little spot for him - and a big spot for emotions."
Aidan's brother, Julius, has trouble with that one.
At 14, he remembers more than his brother about what life was like before that day late in 2015 when Margaret and David Garza adopted the boys.
Their birth mother had abandoned them.
Their birth father was sent to prison for abusing their stepsister, pushing them into the foster care system.
Julius is struggling to understand losing David after all he went through.
"Dad dying was so far the saddest thing that has ever happened in my life," he says. "I can never forgive that."
Gently pressed by his mom to open up, Julius' voice tightens and he says what every father would hope a son would say of them:
"I'm always going to love him," Julius says. "I'll always miss him. I'll never forget him."
(Production: Callaghan O'Hare, Jane Ross) - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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