NEW ORLEANS — Corayna Jones is holding onto photos of happier times.
"She took so many pictures of me — so many pictures of us, so I can always look back and be like, 'Oh my God, I remember this. I remember that.' And I can connect a memory with a picture," said Corayna Jones.
She has tons of pictures, she said, of her mother, Cabertha Jones, and grandmother, Oramae Jones. They both died with COVID-19, weeks apart.
Jones is 24 years old and a Delgado Community College student who works part-time. She's now left alone in the house they all shared together.
Over a Zoom interview, Jones said she takes the grief minute by minute. "In this moment, I'm okay. I can't tell you how I'm going to be in 30 minutes, but right now, I'm fine."
It started in March. Jones's 90-year-old grandmother was admitted to Ochsner Medical Center with coronavirus symptoms.
The next day, her 53-year old mother was admitted to St. Bernard Parish Hospital and tested positive for the virus.
Corayna's grandmother died the day after that. Her mother then spent more than two weeks on a ventilator before her body began to fail.
"Before she went on a ventilator, I was able to talk to her, text her, and call her, but then, as soon as she went on a ventilator because she was heavily sedated, it's not like she knew what was going on around her," said Jones.
She said it's hard to describe how warm her mother's heart was.
"Amazing, just amazing. So loved by so many people. So good. She was like the mom of the community," she said.
Jones is now putting her own life on pause, taking on the responsibility of household bills and planning a memorial service.
A GoFundMe page raised about four thousand dollars in just a few days, and will help her with daily expenses and funerals.
"I just want to be able to give my mom the proper rest that she deserves. I want to be able to give her a burial service. I want to focus on my grieving," said Jones.
She said the grief stings at unexpected times. While she's clinging to photos of the irreplaceable women she lost, she hopes others take it as a lesson to take everything more seriously.
"These situations are real. This pandemic is real, and you really never know if it can hit you," she said.
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