NEW YORK – Raul Luis López never had the chance to say goodbye. López was hospitalized for COVID-19 on April 3 before succumbing nearly three weeks later.
The 39-year-old native of Oaxaca, Mexico, suffered from diabetes which worsened his illness. The day he left for treatment was the last time his wife, Sara Cruz, saw him.
Now López's family, clad in surgical masks and gloves, was gathered in the widow's living room in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York, around a black box of his cremated remains.
A rendering of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and the Americas, watched over his ashes on a table beside flowers and prayer candles.