Remembering the lives lost to COVID-19: Juan Ordoñez, 40, of North Arlington, N.J.
Juan Ordoñez, 40, of North Arlington, N.J., died on April 11, 2020, after becoming ill with COVID-19. He’s among the more than 500,000 Americans who have lost their lives to the disease since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic early last year. Ordoñez was born in Lima, Peru, and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. His wife, Diana Ordoñez, says he was “a prime example of the American Dream.”
Video Transcript
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DIANA ORDOÑEZ: My name is Diane Ordoñez, and I lost my husband, Juan Ordoñez to COVID-19. Juan was very hardworking, very motivated, but also very dedicated to his relationships with his friends, his family, a loving father to his daughter, and an exceptional husband. He was just an exceptional person. He always had a positive perspective, a smile on his face, and a joke to tell. He was just the light in every room.
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Juan was born in Peru, in Lima. Juan was a prime example of the American dream. He came here at a very young age, had to learn the language, financially had to struggle with being away from his family, had others struggles. And what was so great about it is that he still recognized that he had opportunities to grow and learn and be better and do more as long as he worked hard.
His passion was computers, that took such great pride in everything that he did. And so he was able to go from working at the car wash to working at a warehouse to then a technical support department and leading that team. When he contracted the virus, he was getting a promotion that very week. And so he was an information security analyst. And when he was promoted, he was going to take on a manager role leading a team in information security.
Juan was an excellent dad. He was very involved. Nothing was below him. I mean, that was true in our home too. He did the laundry, he swept the floors, he cleaned the bathroom. He was very involved when we were first married. But then when Mia was born, he threw himself into that role too. He did everything-- he changed the diapers, he did the bath time, he changed her. There's pictures of him brushing her hair. Any minute that he could spend with her and see her smile, he would do it.
One of the things that he loved to do as a couple was to travel. And so when Mia was born, there was just no question that we were just going to keep traveling. And we were just going to have to figure it out. And so her very first trip was when she was eight months old. Juan had just graduated. And we said, OK, this is the year we're going to make the big trip to Machu Picchu because that was one of his dreams. A graduation celebration, and she was eight months, and being Peruvian, and just being such a grandiose place. After that, we weren't going to stop. We did all over the Caribbean. We did a bunch of trips in the US.
He was just such a romantic. He just had so many-- he had a surprise up his sleeve all the time. He tricked me into taking her to the train station which was right by the airport for a work thing. And then next thing I know, we're in the airport, and he had planned an extended weekend in Puerto Rico for my birthday. He just wanted to make everything so special.
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And I remember we said, you're young, you don't have any preexisting conditions, you're healthy. It's so early that it's impossible that you could have gotten exposed so quickly. It just got here. We're weren't in New York. We were in New Jersey. And they had one known case or something in New York at the time. So we were just like, it's got to be the flu. We're not going to panic. We're going to stay calm, we're gonna stay positive.
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I just wish I could call. I wish I could talk to him. I wish-- I just miss him so much. I just want him to be remembered and for people to know him, and to know that our lives are short, and that to live every day because you can and he can't. That to me, for Mia, is my biggest thing, it's that he can't wake up today, And I can, and that's a privilege, and to honor m and to know that we just don't know when is the last time we're going to see someone.
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