‘I’ve been so lucky’ Father’s final love letter to his family
A DEVASTATED mum who missed her husband’s death from Covid-19 by minutes found a final message on his phone telling her how much he loved her.
Katie Coelho was seven minutes too late to say goodbye at the intensive care unit in Connecticut, US, where 32-yearold Jonathan Coelho had been placed on a ventilator.
But Mr Coelho had written an emotional 170-word farewell on his phone.
Beneath instructions on how to pay the mortgage, he left messages for Katie and their children, Braedyn, two, and one-year-old Penelope.
‘I love you guys with all my heart and you’ve given me the best life I could have ever asked for,’ he wrote.
‘I’m so lucky, it makes me so proud to be your husband and the father to Braedyn and Penny.’
The message includes reassurances to his wife that ‘if you meet someone, know that if they love you and the kids that I love that for you’.
Mr Coelho wrote the note the day before he was placed on the ventilator at a hospital in Danbury.
His wife, 33, said: ‘That’s just how Jonathan was as a person.
‘Trying to understand how he was in that mental state is so hard, but it’s also not surprising because of how much he loved me and loved the kids.’
She said when she turned his phone on to find some pictures, his call log showed he had tried to ring her.
Right behind it were his notes and personal information, such as who to contact at his job and passwords.
‘Then I started reading down and the first line said, “I love you guys with all my heart”, and I just screamed. I kept reading and it clicked.’
Mr Coelho had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 25 after suffering symptoms including a migraine and loss of taste.
The following day he developed respiratory problems and was admitted to hospital where he was placed on a ventilator. On April 7 he came off the ventilator, and told his wife he might be discharged soon. But on April 22, doctors called her at 2.15am to say that she needed to come to say goodbye.
Her husband’s ashes are now part of two grandfather clocks – one set to the time Braedyn was born, and the other to Penelope’s birth.
The couple met at Western Connecticut State University and married in December 2013.
Katie said: ‘I never felt so secure in who I was as a person until I became his wife, because he just never made me feel anything less than amazing.’
Katie and Jonathan Coelho