Loredo and wife, Sonya

By Nehru Odeh

His life was as dramatic as it was tragic. Yet he left with a moral.

Though he had no underlying medical condition, Billy Loredo, a 45 year old lawyer in Texas, United States, contracted the dreaded coronavirus at his law practice. He showed mild symptoms, sometimes getting feverish.

However, ironically on Thanksgiving, his illness deteriorated and he woke up with breathing problems and was later admitted to a nearby hospital, McAllen Medical Center in McAllen, Texas, where he struggled to get better for two weeks.

“For two weeks he was just trying really hard. He was trying his hardest to not be put on a ventilator,’ his wife said. ‘I kept telling him that he would be OK, that he would get through this and that he would come back to me.

“It’s just awful that I couldn’t be there to hold his hand, and that he was fighting there for his life by himself,” his wife, Sonya Kypuros, said.

The doctors, knowing that Loredo’s case was grim, decided to put him in an incubator. And just as they were about to incubate him, he stopped and composed a romantic letter to his wife, telling her how much he loved her and that if given a second chance, he promised to be a better husband because she deserved the best.

Here is the letter Loredo wrote his wife:

“I want you to know that I am fighting very hard every day for my life. I do it for you so that I can see you again. You are the most important person in my life and I miss you every day.

“I know I am not always the perfect man I want to be, but I do my best. You, for me, have always been perfect, even when I say you are not and I get mad. 99% of the time I am wrong and you are right and I love that.

“If I make it through this I promise to be a better man, in God, in life, and as a husband. You have always deserved the best and I get a second chance I will do it.

“If I don’t make it, I want you to know that I lived a happy wonderful life with you and would never have traded it for all the riches in the world.

“I also want you to be happy and continue to live your life without me and with no regrets. We had our time and it was wonderful. I love you and miss you very much. I will keep fighting. Love, Billy.’

However, his brother, Pedro Loredo, said when Sonya got the email, they realized those were likely his last words.

‘At that moment, me and her both realized, this is his final letter,’ he told Good Morning America.

But Sonya said her husband, who died at 12am on 13 December, was trying to give her permission to be happy without him

“I think he was trying to give me permission to be happy without him,” Sonya said of the letter.

“That was hard to read. But he took care of me and took care of everyone so I’m not surprised he wrote that.”

She added that she is now sharing the email from her husband to show others how dangerous the virus still is.

‘Be mindful of who you could get it from or who you could give this to,’ she warned.