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Jesus Carrillo-Garcia, a Las Vegas resident who died from complications of coronavirus, was a diehard supporter of the Mexican soccer team, Chivas.
Monday, April 6, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Each Chivas soccer game was an event for Jesus Carrillo-Garcia and his family in Las Vegas.
Carrillo-Garcia, a professional cook, would make ceviche and other specialties, and the family would congregate in front of the television to passionately cheer for their beloved Mexican squad.
For Carrillo-Garcia, everything involved family. He would always post family photos, often of his grandchildren, on Facebook. He would also talk daily to his sister Eva Luz Carrillo-Luna, even though she lived in Jalisco, Mexico.
After years apart, she visited in late-February. It was supposed to be a happy reunion — they gambled, ate and visited. But then symptoms of the novel coronavirus started to appear, just slightly with Carrillo-Garcia. Soon, COVID-19 pillaged the entire Carrillo household.
In a matter of days, Carrillo-Garcia, 66, was dead, and so was Carrillo-Luna, 64, said Jesus Carrillo Jr., Carrillo-Garcia’s son. The younger Carrillo’s fiancée also has the infection, which has killed 46 and infected 1,836 in Nevada as of Sunday.
“It feels like I’m just in survival mode,” Carrillo said.
Home is much different now.
Family members are isolated in different rooms, Jesus Carrillo said. He can’t console his mother, or hug his fiancée and children. He won't open the hospital bag holding his father’s belongings because he knows he would break down.
And, of course, there is the emotional toll.
Cousins have been delivering supplies to the Carrillo home. The other day, when they made it to the doorsteps, “I just wanted to hug them and I started crying because I couldn’t,” Carrillo said.
“I never thought I would feel that before… Your body just craves that comfort from somebody else from family when something like this happens, and when it’s taken away from you, you see how important it is.”
Carrillo-Luna landed in Las Vegas for a two-week trip Feb. 27. During the initial days of her trip, she developed “a bit of a cough.” Suddenly, Carrillo’s father developed a fever accompanied by some back pain.
On March 10, Carrillo drove his father to the doctor, who sent him home. The next day he had trouble breathing, a fever and a cough, so his son took him to a clinic, where they diagnosed him with acute pneumonia but again sent him home.
His condition worsened over the weekend. “It would hurt him when he would do any type of movement, walking,” Carrillo said.
His son took him to the clinic again on March 16.
There, an ambulance was called to take Carrillo-Garcia to a hospital. That was the last time Carrillo saw his father in person.
During Carrillo-Garcia’s week stay in the hospital, “he didn’t look like he was improving,” his son said. They interacted via cellphone video calls.
Jesus Carrillo-Garcia, of Las Vegas, and his sister, Eva Luz Carrillo-Luna each died from COVID-19.
In the meantime, the family got notice that Carrillo-Luna, who was now in California visiting her children, was seriously ill, and then that she had died March 20. Doctors suspected COVID-19.
The same day, Carrillo-Garcia suffered heart failure and a stroke, but he had been stabilized before being hooked up to a ventilator, his son said. On their final FaceTime, Carrillo gave his father words of encouragement and told him he was his hero.
“Knowing that we couldn’t see him before he passed, that was the worst part we couldn’t go into the hospital to see him to be with him,” Carrillo said. “He died with just doctors and nurses there instead of his family.”
Carrillo fondly remembers his family history. Both his parents are from Guadalajara, Mexico, but ended up meeting in Los Angeles. His father worked in kitchens most of his life. When the family relocated to Las Vegas in 1999, the man worked two jobs until he bought a house.
His father cooked at Garduños at Fiesta Rancho and then at the Palms. His last job was at the Grand Cafe in at the Green Valley Ranch.
His father was the tranquil anchor of the household. He wasn’t a yeller. He loved his grandchildren and loved to interact with other family members on Facebook.
He ran at the park or on a treadmill almost daily, and was just recently talking about buying cleats because he found an amateur soccer team he could join, his son said. He was probably the healthiest person in the household, Carrillo said.
Carrillo-Garcia would not be at peace knowing that his wife and son’s fiancée were also infected with the virus, but they appear to be on the mend, Carrillo said.
Carrillo hopes he’ll be able to properly grieve his father soon. Due to social distancing directives, there won’t be a funeral or a memorial before the summer. The man wanted his remains brought to Mexico. He will be cremated, and his ashes will be split between Las Vegas and Guadalajara.
Carrillo is trying to not break, and he’s picked up meditation to deal with the pain of losing so much in such uncertain times.
Forgotten memories have resurfaced, like the times he would fall asleep in the car as a boy and his dad would carry him inside the house without waking him.
Or when the family went to a soccer game and the boy got sick. “And I remember him driving us home… And I remember just lying down on the truck, just feeling dizzy and just him, just calm and collected, and he knew exactly what to do,” Carrillo said.
As Carrillo-Garcia, from a hospital bed, heard his son utter the word hero and his wife shared a few intimate words in Spanish, he was no longer able to speak, but he nodded his head.
“It looked like he understood,” his son said.
Carrillo-Garcia died a day later.
