Family mourns loss of friend and father figure taken by COVID-19

PASCO, Wash.-- For more than 30 years, Jorge Guijarro-Castaneda was the only dad the Mercado children had really known.

For the past twenty years, Jorge worked at the Tyson Fresh Meats facility in Wallula as a utility worker, until he passed away from complications related to COVID-19 last week.

A photo posted on social media over the weekend showing a bouquet of white roses and boxes of Little Caesar's Pizza might seem like an odd way to remember a family member, but it was one of the little things Jorge was known for. 

"Whenever he came over to one of our houses, he's always bringing Little Caesar's Pizza and pop," recalled Juanita Lafontaine while sitting around the kitchen table at her brother's home in Pasco Monday afternoon.

"It was like his signature," Adrian Mercado added. "You knew he was here when you saw a box of Little Caesar's and a 2 Liter on the side."

Adrian Mercado, David Mercado, and Juanita Lafontaine gathered with their mother, Betty Pacheco, to remember the man they called George, who had been a part of their lives since they were young children growing up in Kennewick.

"We had a dad, but he wasn't involved in our lives. We may not have called Jorge 'dad,'" Juanita said, "but in our hearts, he was our dad."

Betty first met Jorge at a dance in 1982, and they started dating soon after. Jorge was a constant in her children's lives, attending sporting events, and filling the role of father in many ways. He bought David his first car when he turned 16, and Adrian says he took the family on outings that created a lifetime of happy memories.

"When we used to have the drive-in theater right here off of Sylvester, packing us in his car, a two-door car, with four kids in the back and my mom in front with him, just squeezing in to watch a double feature."

David says he wishes Tyson-- where Jorge worked for more than 20 years-- would have done more to protect him and the other more than 200 workers who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, especially when he first started feeling sick.

"He told me, 'I have to work. They're not paying us to stay home, you know,'" David recalled a conversation with Jorge when he started feeling sick. "'I'm still working.' But, it wasn't until that following Monday when I talked to him that Tyson officially released a notice that said they're paying employees now to stay home. But by then, it was already three weeks since he had gotten sick."

Jorge went to the hospital after he was experiencing symptoms of the coronavirus in mid-April, and initially tested negative for COVID-19. But after he was rushed to the hospital with breathing difficulties, he was tested again, and that test came back positive for the virus, according to Betty. 

"It appeared that he was getting better. He even got to call me a few times. But, he started having problems again, and had to be intubated again. I couldn't go see him, just talk to him, although they did let me go in just before they took him off of everything."

Jorge passed away on Friday, May 1, 2020, about two weeks after he was hospitalized with symptoms of COVID-19, and just weeks before his 65th birthday.

"I don't want anyone else to go through it. I mean it is devastating," David said. "I know there's a lot of people still thinking it's never gonna happen, I don't need to worry about it, I'm not gonna get sick. And maybe you won't. But your parents might, or your grandparents might, and it's devastating."