For millions, holiday is time for mourning
Paul De La Cerda knelt and laid a bouquet of white flowers beside the leaves covering his father’s grave, still fresh enough to be marked only by a rectangle of dirt.
He stood with his three brothers beneath the live oak trees at Forest Lawn Cemetery in southeast Houston, doing what brothers do: cracking jokes — often at the expense of each other — and retelling stories about bloody injuries, trips to Pancho’s Mexican Buffet and the bad cologne their dad always gave for Christmas.
But it was Thanksgiving, and under the laughter, they missed their father.
“I’d give anything to have at least one of those moments back,” said Joe De La Cerda, the oldest son of Jesus De La Cerda, one of Houston’s first limousine chauffeurs, who died from COVID-19 in
July at age 69.
The De La Cerda brothers are among an estimated 2.4 million Americans grieving in the wake of more than 263,000 deaths from COVID-19. On average, a University of Southern California study found, each victim leaves behind nine close familymembers, meaning nearly 200,000 people in Texas spent the holiday missing a close relative lost to the virus.
The coronavirus in the last nine months has made its invisible and unrelenting spread from husband to wife, coworker to coworker, and patient to nurse. Morgues ran out of space last spring in New York and again this month in El Paso, where the Texas National Guard deployed to stack bodies in freezer trucks.
Many families said goodbye on a screen, if at all. The bereaved refrained from hugging and cried tears that slipped hidden under face masks. Now, families are confronting the first major holiday without their loved ones.
“Looking at that empty seat at the table, how do you celebrate?” said Cristina Chipriano of Bo’s Place, a Houston bereavement center offering free support.
Grief can be magnified on holidays, which trigger memories and come loaded with expectations, said Laurie Taylor, executivedirector of Grief and Loss Center of North Texas. The isolation caused by pandemic restrictions can also compound grief, exacerbate loneliness andmake it difficult to find a new normal, she said.
“It’s OK just to make it through the holiday without all the happiness and cheer,” Taylor said. “You’re grieving, you’re mourning someone you love very deeply — you can’t just turn that off because the calendar says it’s Thanksgiving Day.”
The De La Cerda brothers tried to make the best of it — each had plans to eat with different family and friends later that day — but they admitted Thanksgiving was a difficult day following several difficult months.
The brothers recently learned that a cousin in El Paso, a Navy veteran, died from COVID-19. Their uncle survived the disease last summer after hospital treatment. Joe’s daughter tested positive and had to quarantine in a college dorm, he said.
“It’s like, you can’t get away from it,” Paul said. “We’re hurting pretty good when it comes to that, but like he said, there’s a lot of families losing more than one family member.”
For the first few weeks after his father’s death, Joe, a paralegal, said he caught himself falling into the habit of texting his dad. Paul had to turn off a weekly alert on his phone reminding him to call and check in on his father.
Up until the day he got sick, Jesus De La Cerda, who was born in Mexico, was always driving.
First it was a taxi in Houston. Then an ambulance. And, for the last four decades, a limousine in which he ferried the likes of Colin Powell, Chuck Norris and Billy Gibbons. He garnered a lengthy list of loyal clients and collected a repertoire of wild stories from the road.
“He was such a people person that anybody who met him, right off the bat they trusted him,” said Michael De La Cerda, who works in construction.
It was while De La Cerda was driving in the summer that he received his positive coronavirus results.
From his hospital bed, he snapped two photos in the harsh light. The scruffy beard and loose green gown were a far cry fromhis usual look: clean-shaven face, dark-colored suit. His sons thought their father would pull through, but those photos would be his last.
De La Cerda spent his July 26 birthday hooked up to a ventilator in the ICU. He died the next day, alone.
Condolences poured in from those who could not attend the small ceremony. In Facebook comments, fellow members of the Zoomers— a local group for singles over 50— remembered De La Cerda as a kind gentleman and coveted dance partner. Country singer Clint Black thanked the chauffeur for making his wedding day special.
In the months following the death, Paul has confronted the task of sorting through his father’s belongings, discovering things he never knew his father kept: report cards and memorabilia from his sons’ military careers.
“He kept everything,” said Paul, a retired Army paratrooper and current photographer, actor and musician. “That’s when you look back and go, ‘Damn, I didn’t know he cared that much.’ ”
He also took photos of everything, capturing the highlights of a career he loved. He posed with celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey and Dan Rather and stood proud in front of sleek stretch limos, always looking sharp in a dark suit and tie.
De La Cerda had a bevy of stories to tell each time his son Paul asked, “Hey, what’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you?”
There was the time David Hassellhoff briefly made off with DeLa Cerda’s limo outside a hotel. Or when the driver took U2 to Whataburger after a 2017concert. Another time, De La Cerda was driving Mr. T. down Richmond when the actor started throwing KFC chicken bones from the sunroof.
He chauffeured presidents and foreign dignitaries but never failed to offer his family members a lift to prom or a wedding, Paul said.
Besides photos, DeLa Cerda left behind a full closet of suits. When his son donated them this week to a veterans organization, two men in need of professional clothing tried on some of the snazzy suits right away — and they fit.
“This is my dad and his way of giving back after he’s gone,” Paul said.
After reminiscing for an hour, the brothers each climbed back into separate trucks and pulled out onto Almeda Genoa Road, joining the rest of the traffic rushing past.
All around, as wind chimes tinkled, other families visiting other graves came and went.