Ecuadoran COVID Victim’s Family Needs Help

We all know that life isn’t always fair, but sometimes it is downright cruel.

Life has been cruel to the family of Moises Quituizaca, a hard-working immigrant from Ecuador who, with his wife Rosa, left their native country because they could not support their family there. Moises had a skill he learned in Ecuador: He was a fine mason. Their plan was for the couple to earn money to send home regularly for the children, who were being cared for by their grandparents, and to save enough to return so the family could be reunited.

Many of you will recognize a familiar story: It was originally only supposed to be for a limited time, but no matter how much help they gave their family back home, they always felt they should give more. How can you put a limit on what you give to your kids?   So Moises worked hard. He was good at stone work, and each job he did drew the attention of another customer. He never said no to a job, even if it was for less money than the quality of his work deserved. And so the original plan to live and work in this country for a limited time was changed to an indefinite stay.

Moises did not limit his labor to masonry. He cut grass, tended gardens, cut down trees, did handy work of every kind. He was a humble man with many skills. He could fix toilets and faucets. He could repair leaky roofs. He could get rid of hornets’ nests. And his prices were just as humble as he was. People liked him. His English wasn’t the best, but he always managed to understand what customers wanted and he always managed to make himself understood. To be completely fair and honest, Moises always wrote out exactly what he would do, and the amount of money he would ask for.

Moises worked incredibly hard. In addition to servicing his customer’s needs, he got up to deliver newspapers early in the morning before his workday started.

In Norwalk, Connecticut, where they settled, the family grew to include another child, a boy named John. Moises was proud that he had an American son named John—he corrected anyone who assumed the boy’s name was Juan.

John was in his last semester of high school—a time that was happy for most people before this year—when sudden misfortune hit his family: Moises contracted the COVID-19 virus. Hospitalized first in a local hospital, Moises had to be transferred to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he lay on a ventilator for months, going through various stages and procedures: induced coma, tracheotomy, ICU care. Moises was cured of COVID and moved out of ICU, giving Rosa and John hope. But prolonged ventilation had irreparably damaged his lungs, and on August 19, 2020, Moises died. This was a man who worked every day of his life for his family, and his only reward was an early and difficult death. Sometimes life is cruel.

Now Moises is doing something he was never able to do because of legal restrictions: He is going home to Ecuador. The cost of a funeral and shipping the body is $8110, a sum that Rosa and John do not have. The family’s only income was what Moises earned. While he was working, it was enough, but now the family has had nothing coming in since April, when Moises contracted the disease.

We family friends are asking for donations to cover funeral and shipping expenses of $8110. Separately, if anyone would be good enough to help with something else that was the dream of Moises, we ask for donations to a fund to cover the expenses of a college education for John. John was scheduled to enroll at Norwalk Community College before his father got sick. John is an unassuming lad like his father and, also like him, very bright. Now those dreams may have to be postponed unless he receives outside help.

To all of you, we friends of a good and worthy man taken from life so unfairly, as it seems, will be so grateful for anything you can do to make what this family is going through seem a little less cruel.