One toddler in New York is continuing to ask when her late mother, who died earlier this year of the coronavirus, will finally come home.
Leona, Gabrielle’s 3-year-old daughter, continues to ask when her mother will come home and her father, Leon Gayle, struggles to find the answer.
“My daughter asked every day … about when mommy was coming home,” Leon said in an interview with CNN.
“And every day we had to tell her that she was in the hospital, that she’s getting better. And that hopefully, you know, she’ll be home soon … the day she died, I had to tell her that her mommy wasn’t coming home again.”
“Leona still misses her mommy and she will ask periodically for her,” Leon added. “I have to re-explain everything again.”
Both Gabrielle and Leon contracted COVID-19 in March, along with multiple other members of the family but while Leon recovered, Gabrielle’s condition continued on a downward spiral.
On March 28, Gabrielle was admitted to the hospital and placed on a ventilator a few days later. Her kidneys then began to fail, and she was placed on dialysis.
Leon revealed how doctors told the family that they had to prioritize Gabrielle or her unborn child, whom they named Gabriel. Leon said that they “always chose not to do the delivery” because of the risk that Gabrielle would “lose too much blood and die.”
Just four weeks after Gabrielle was admitted into the hospital, her baby died. And three days later, Gabrielle died after a fungus in her blood led to liver failure.
Leon shared how his wife of six years was “very caring and loving,” and Gabrielle, an elementary special education teacher, was described by one of her former colleagues as “full of life, love and laughter.”
A GoFundMe was set up to “support Leona to continue her acting/modeling career and her future endeavors. Gabrielle was Leona’s drama and modeling agent,” the page reads. “Leona has had the opportunity to cross several stages as a model. Leona’s made her acting debut on the Fox show, The Prodigal Son and NBC’s New Amsterdam.”
“This fund will support Leona to continue her acting/modeling career and her future endeavors,” the page adds. “Please join me in this special cause for Leona, we all know Gabrielle would have planned for her.”
With a background in the creative and educational fields, Amelia Finefrock is freelance writer, singer-songwriter and nanny based in Chicago.
