When I read the headline “‘One Couldn’t Live Without the Other’: Married High School Sweethearts With COVID Die on Same Day”, I imagined a sad but touching story. I envisioned an elderly couple, together for decades and decades, passing away at the end of a long and happy life. Unfortunately, this isn’t that.

Alvaro, 44, and Sylvia Fernandez, 42, of Loma Linda, had been together since high school. The parents of four children died Dec. 19, just hours apart.

A headline like “40-Something Parents Die of Preventable Causes, Leave 4 Children Orphaned” wouldn’t make anyone feel good, but it would more accurately convey the gravity of the story, and of our global pandemic.