Andy Marin

38, Porterville

For Andy Marin, weekends were for barbecues and family.

Blasting his “lowrider oldies” playlist, Marin would spend the weekend cooking up tri-tip and ribs for his family and neighbors. After he was done, he’d sit back and watch with a smile on his face as his wife and children ate his delectable meals.

“It didn’t matter how long he was away from home, he’d spend his weekends barbecuing,” his wife, Krystal Magno, said. “That was how he unwinded.”

Andres “Andy” Marin III died on July 1 of COVID-19 complications at Sierra View Medical Center in Porterville. He was 38.

From tacos on his flat-top grill to Filipino lumpia and pancit, Marin always knew the way to people’s hearts: his cooking.

When Magno took lunch breaks during her 12-hour shifts at the Sierra View emergency room where she worked, he’d feed everyone there, she said.

“What’s our husband bringing us for dinner today?” her co-workers would ask jokingly.

This year, Marin began living his dream of being a long-haul truck driver. After working with truck drivers for much of his life at a shipping and receiving company, he took on this new challenge to help his family. He wanted his wife to focus on nursing school.

Marin loved being on the road and taking in the scenery. One of his first road trips on the job took him across the country to Florida. He came back inspired (and with some trinkets).

“He wanted to see and absorb as much as he could,” Magno said.

Marin started developing COVID symptoms during a two-week work trip in early June, when he started having headaches and a light cough.

Marin later went on a second trip and cut it short after experiencing body aches, nausea and vomiting. On June 15, his oxygen levels dropped, and he was admitted to the hospital. He died 16 days later, after being diagnosed with both bacterial and viral pneumonia. He spent his last days intubated.

“It was a roller-coaster ride from the day he was admitted to the day he passed,” Magno said.

Marin is survived by his wife; children Karrie, Andres IV and Alyssa; parents Maribel and Andres II; grandmothers Jovita Marin and Graciela Mercado; and sister Lorraine.