CLEVELAND — The country and world continue to face the grim reality of the coronavirus pandemic that continues to strip so many of their loved ones. So far this year for Covid-19, there have been 7.5 million cases and 211,000 deaths across the country.
As we continue to report the numbers, we will continue to share the faces and the stories behind them. They include moments of heartbreak as Ohioans share their stories of how their loved ones lived and what was lost when their loved ones died. That includes a Cleveland bus driver who lost his 24-year-old wife Sierra to the virus just days after Mother’s Day. Her husband, Ramath Mizpeh Warith Sr., says his wife lived life to the fullest as a loving mother and she fought until the very end for her infant son whom she never got the chance to meet.
Sierra was 30-weeks pregnant with their second child when she tested positive for coronavirus. Ramath Mizpeh is a Cleveland bus driver and he thinks he infected her, a thought that brings him to tears.
“I believe I caught it at work because I was an essential worker working day in and day out,” said Ramath Mizpeh.
He recovered, however, Sierra’s symptoms continued progressing which led to pneumonia and eventually the hospital.
“They kept telling me another infection, she’s bleeding from nose from mouth, we can’t control the bleeding. The covid had stripped her body of so much natural function that her lungs weren’t working at all,” said Ramath Mizpeh. “At one point the doctor had told us she was the sickest person in the state.”
Ramath Mizpeh says Sierra was rushed into surgery to deliver her baby, however he says his wife passed away after she delivered her baby boy.
“She stayed alive to get him out safely,” said Ramath Mizeph “[She] never saw him, never hugged him, never held him, but the hospital she was at…they took his blankets and they put them under her.”
He said doctors and nurses made sure Sierra was surrounded by the scent of her baby boy who was in the NICU just a few floors down from his mom who gave her life to save him.
“I don’t know if that’s how God worked it but when she passed [my son] just turned into her, he looks just like her, he acts just like her, when I look at him, I see so much of her.”
Ramath Mizpeh knows his wife is looking down and pushing him to continue raising their two little boys, who are spitting images of their mom - a woman guiding her family with a big smile on her face from heaven.
“I know she would be proud because she was always proud no matter what I did. She was proud.”
Ramath Mizpeh says he wants to thank the doctors and nurses who worked tirelessly to care for Sierra and their baby boy. He is taking on the challenges of being a single father of two and will never forget the grim reality of how coronavirus changed his life and the lives of his sons.
Join Laura Caso for her series: Faces of Covid-19 on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. on What Matters Most.
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