DANBURY, Ct. – A young father who was battling COVID-19 wrote a heartbreaking note to his family before he died from the illness.
Jonathan Coelho’s wife, Katie, says she discovered the note in her husband’s phone after he passed away.
"It's a way to be like, daddy was very sick, and daddy was very scared, but he wanted you guys to know how much he loved you," Katie told WSFB.
In the note, the 32-year-old man told his wife and kids, Braedyn and Penny, how he loved them and that they gave him the best life he could have ever asked for.
“I am so lucky it makes me so proud to be your husband and the father to Braedyn and Penny,” he wrote.
He went on to say that Katie is the most beautiful, caring and nurturing person he had ever met and that she was one of a kind.
“Make sure you live life with happiness and that same passion that made me fall in love with you,” he wrote. “Seeing you be the best mom to the kids is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Jonathan told Katie what to tell their 2-year-old son.
“Let Braedyn know he’s my best bud and I’m proud to be his father and for all the amazing things he’s done and continues to do,” he wrote.
And he told her what to say to their 10-month-old daughter.
“Let Penelope know she’s a princess and can have whatever she wants in life,” he wrote. “I’m so lucky...”
Katie says she’s grateful that her children will have the note to look back on as they grow up.
"I'm going to be able to show them, look at how much your dad loved us and look how much everyone else saw your dad loved you,” she told WSFB . “And, your dad, your dad didn't want this to happen. He wanted to be here, so it'll be good that I have at least that little extra piece to share with them."
Before Jonathan went into the hospital with coronavirus symptoms in late March, Katie says he was otherwise healthy.
"He would start coughing, but, when he was coughing, he couldn't breathe in between it,” said Katie. "It went from I don't feel really good, to okay, this is kind of scary, to my husband's life. He was fighting for his life within four or five days."
WSFB reports that Jonathan worked as a probation officer and was worried about getting sick at work and passing it on to his kids, one of which has cerebral palsy and is at high risk of serious illness. Sadly, Katie says her husband did end up contracting the virus from someone at work.
She says he was hospitalized for nearly a month and was very sick at times. But as recently as Tuesday, Katie says he was breathing better with hopes he would soon come home.
That night, their son sent him a video.
"He had made a video that said 'dad is my best friend,' so they were showing it to my husband, and my husband went into cardiac arrest, and he coded, and they couldn't revive him," said Katie.
A GoFundMe page is collecting donations for the family.