Christmas will be quieter in the Texas borderlands, where aunts and uncles, grandparents and adult siblings often live under the same roof.
That closeness let the coronavirus ravage families, The New York Times is reporting.
Reporter Edgar Sandoval filed this story for the Times from the Rio Grande Valley:
EDINBURG, Texas — Days after her Thanksgiving feast was prepared, served and eaten, Maribel Rodriguez tried to muster the will to unpack the tree, lights and decorations of boisterous Christmases past.
Instead she found herself praying a rosary over the three wooden urns containing the ashes of her husband, her mother and an aunt, all of whom had shared a home with her.
“My husband was the one who used to set up the tree and dressed up as Santa every year,” Ms. Rodriguez said in a rural section of Edinburg, Texas, her voice echoing around the hacienda-style home that is emptier now. “I can’t get myself to do it. I end up crying before I touch any of the ornaments.”
Editor’s Note: Click here to read the full story by Edgar Sandoval in The New York Times.
Editor’s Note: The main image accompanying the above news clip shows the urns of Maribel Rodriguez’s husband, mother and aunt, who all died from COVID-19. (Photo credit: Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times).
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