After losing mother, grandmother and uncle to COVID-19, Evanston family tries to move forward. ‘I haven’t seen miracles happen when it comes to COVID.’

The coronavirus had already taken her uncle and her grandmother. By the time Karina Reyes’ 47-year-old mother was hospitalized, Reyes and the rest of her family were all too familiar with planning a pandemic memorial.

Doctors told Reyes and her brothers that their mother, Elvia Mendoza, was not getting better. “Does a miracle have to happen for her to live?” Reyes recalls asking a doctor. She said the doctor responded: “Honestly, I haven’t seen miracles happen when it comes to COVID.”

People who care for their family members who contract the virus can end up paying for it with their own lives. The Mendoza family is one of many suffering through COVID-19 1/4 u2032s deadly path. Elvia Mendoza became ill after caring for Reyes’ grandmother. “She would sleep with her, she would bathe her, everything,” Reyes said.

Reyes, 21, and brothers Francisco Reyes, 23, and Daniel Mendoza, 19, and their father, Celso Alejandro Reyes, 44, are working to honor their matriarch’s memory and find a way forward themselves.

The Evanston family experienced a cascade of COVID-19 diagnoses last year, beginning in April when Reyes’ uncle, Isaias Mendoza, who had diabetes, became severely ill after contracting the virus. He spent a month in the hospital before he died.

For a few months, the multigenerational household had a respite from the virus — “everything was fine up until November,” Reyes said. Her older brother traveled with their grandmother to Mexico for another relative’s funeral, and when they returned, they both eventually tested positive for the virus.

“We didn’t think it was possible, because they were socially distancing, they were always wearing a mask,” Reyes said. But her brother and grandmother, Reyna Mercado, started feeling ill. With a fever, Francisco Reyes quarantined in the family’s basement, but their grandmother, who used a wheelchair, was not able to quarantine, she said. Her father also tested positive and has since recovered. Reyes and her boyfriend, who lives with family, tested negative for the virus.

In December, Mercado was hospitalized, and the family made the difficult decision to place her in hospice care. She died Dec. 17.

The day after, Elvia Mendoza was hospitalized, too, after spending her days worrying about a proper burial for her mother. She missed the Dec. 22 burial.

Paying for the burials and medical care has been hard; many in the family have been unable to work during the pandemic. Reyes, who is a college student and also worked part-time, said her mother did not have health insurance. The family has a GoFundMe campaign to help with the costs. It has raised about $8,000.

Typically, in the fall and winter, the Mendoza family would be planning to visit a pumpkin patch, which Elvia Mendoza loved, or going to see the Christmas tree downtown. Instead, the siblings stayed in the living room together, watching a video stream connected to their mother’s hospital room. Karina Reyes kept notes in her phone about questions she asked the medical staff daily — her mother’s condition, her oxygen levels.

“My heart felt like it was in a bubble, and it was just waiting for it to pop,” she said.

When the doctor suggested a ventilator, Reyes said her mother was terrified. She remembered how her brother never came off his.

The siblings begged to see her. After suiting up in full protective gear — two pairs of gloves, two face masks including an N95, a hairnet — they saw her for several minutes. They gave her a small postcard with the image of the Virgin Mary.

“We told her we loved her so much,” Karina Reyes said. “We blessed her. We told her that, don’t be scared, everything was going to be OK.”

Her mother went on a ventilator on Christmas night.

“She kind of did it for us,” Reyes said about her mother going on the ventilator. “She was scared, but she wanted to do it for us.”

In the days after, Elvia Mendoza developed steady high fevers. The doctor told her sons and daughter that it was time.

They put on protective gear, told her how much she was loved, that they were going to be OK. They prayed. They blessed her — gave her holy water.

“You’re not supposed to take off your gloves, you’re not supposed to take off your masks,” Karina Reyes remembered. “In those moments, all we wanted to do was hug her and kiss her.”

Her mother died at 9:07 p.m. on Jan. 6.

Again, they traveled to the funeral home. They spent two hours looking at caskets. None felt right. They bought bright flowers, to mirror her personality. They chose an outfit and shoes that she loved.

At her memorial, people came up to Karina Reyes one by one to tell her how her mother had put a smile on their face, a memory of a moment about her kindness.

“To me, my mom was such a hero,” she said. “She was never the type of person to expect anything in return.”

Lydia Maldonado, a friend for more than a decade, said Elvia Mendoza would go out of her way to help others, dropping everything to help and bringing food when family members were sick. She loved their Dunkin’ Donuts runs for sweet tea and catch-ups.

“This lady had such a big heart, you wouldn’t even believe,” she said.

An immigrant who grew up in Mexico and came to the United States as a teenager, Elvia Mendoza had worked hard her entire life cleaning houses and schools, her daughter said. Decades after arriving, her immigration interview was finally scheduled, said her lawyer, Ruth Dunning. She was expected to get a green card; a December immigration interview had to be canceled when she became sick.

“My mom has gone through so many obstacles that only made her stronger, only made her grow, and made us grow in life,” Karina Reyes said. “We just assumed (COVID-19) was another obstacle that we were going to be able to face.”

Instead, after their mother died, she and her brothers went to their rooms and found the piggy banks their mother had bought at Target. From time to time, they would slip in cash.

Instead, they sat on the floor together, opening them.

Her father, Karina Reyes said, had been saving up to take their mom on a trip. Finally, as a resident, she would be free to fly and visit her family in Mexico.

“All this money was for your mom,” he told them. “Look what we’re using it for now.”

abowen@chicagotribune.com