B. Wright
August 20, 2020
I had the fortunate opportunity to meet two amazing men today. Eduardo Gonzalez and Luis Octavio, both are 76 years old and have lived in the Tampa Bay area since they were five years old. They forged a friendship over 50 years ago when they returned home after serving in the United States Army and being deployed to fight in the Vietnam War. It was during their return trip home that their friendship was forever bonded.
In more recent times, they spend their Tuesdays and Thursdays playing dominoes at a small local Cuban coffee house and domino hall. They usually will spend time playing dominoes and chatting while having their Café con Leche and cigars. They are a part of each others “chosen family” because while they may not be blood relatives, they have spent over five decades sharing stories, worries, happiness, successes and losses. This makes them more of a family than many families out there in today’s society. A lot of things have changed since the Covid pandemic has spread within our community. Small businesses have closed, grocery aisles are one way, children are beginning to return to school- with masks. This is not the same world we knew in January. Eduardo and Luis each shared some of their stories with me.
Eduardo tells me about the loss of his wife, Hortensia. He shows me a picture that he pulls from his wallet. It’s edges have become frayed a bit, but nonetheless, she is strikingly beautiful and she was his wife of 58 years. He tells me about how beautiful she was when she greeted him when he arrived home after Vietnam. He said he can remember how he was so excited to introduce her to his new brother. Hortensia was apparently relieved to know Eduardo had made friends while away. He speaks about his children and how they’ve grown into a wonderful adults and about all of his 12 grandchildren that he has not been able to see because they are afraid that they might make him sick. Hortensia passed away at the end of June in the hospital. She had fallen and broken her arm in several places and injured her shoulder. She was taken to the hospital and required a surgery and a subsequent four day stay for recovery. The Covid outbreak began to hit our area pretty hard at this time, in response to this, they moved her to a more secure floor of the hospital. The hospital did not allow visitors, and they took away her only device to be able to contact the outside world, her iPad. She began to suffer from depression and had stopped eating and succumbed to essentially just being lonely. Tragically, her death was labeled as a Covid death, which no one can say for sure because no one was allowed to be in to witness testing, see her lab results or to see her when she was in the hospital. This will turn out to be one other thing Eduardo and Luis have in common.
Vietnam was not the only thing that Eduardo and Luis were able to bond over. Luis had lost his son who was 32 years old. His son, Jorge, was killed in an automobile accident in the middle June. He was hit by a drunk driver, who left the scene of the accident, Leaving Jorge to suffer alone. The accident was not discovered for quite a few hours, given that the road was not a well traveled road. Upon the medical examiners report, Luis was shocked to find that his sons death was labeled as a “Covid-related death”. He knew full well that his son had been hit by a drunk driver because the drunk driver had turned himself in later the same day of the accident, and Luis was notified. The driver confessed to what he had done, where the accident took place, and what color car he had hit. Luis is still to this day fighting to change the Covid related death that is listed on his sons death certificate. His son left behind a wife and three children who are 9, 6 and 3. Due to how the hospital is detailing the death, the drunk driver’s insurance company is fighting the insurance payout for the vehicular manslaughter. This is leaving Jorge’s family is a hole that is growing deeper and deeper.
Despite the losses that these two men have endured, they have remained more bonded as ever. There have not been funerals yet, because families on both sides are quite large. The interesting thing about both of these men, aside from the fact that they have remain friends for all of these years, is the fact that they are very aware of exactly what Is really happening in our world right now. Eduardo was even asking me questions about if I “knew what those damn Demorats were doing” and how “this is not the America we (meaning he and Luis) went to war for”. They are sad that their Domino Hall has yet to reopen because they would not be able to socially distance properly. This why Louis and Eduardo meet every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and have coffee at the local Wawa, sitting outside properly distanced and one wears a mask and one does not. It may not be their café con Leche, dominoes and cigars, but at least they have each other, jokes to tell and laughs about “do you remember back in December?” It is their routine and they have not let anything take that away from them.
As I was getting ready to drive away I rolled my window down and I asked if I could take a picture of them because I had forgotten. I waited for a few minutes for them to become embroiled in another conversation about something. I wish I had known what they were talking about because Eduardo got very engaged in whatever story he was telling. I hope to see them again, they brought both smiles and tears to my day. My heart feels a sadness for their losses and what they are each enduring, but I am so happy that they have each other to go through this time together. I couldn’t imagine two better people to navigate this new version of reality together than Eduardo and Luis.