OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. (WESH) — Susan Braley passed away after contracting COVID-19 and being rushed to the hospital due to low oxygen.
Her grandson, Thomas Bartholomew, said he remembers their last conversation clearly.
“Right before my grandmother passed, I got to talk to her, you know when they were wheeling her out. First thing I wanted to tell her was that I love you and thank you for everything you’ve done in my life and she said, ‘I love you too,’” Batholomew said.
On her way to the hospital, she also asked Thomas to make sure their family continues the holiday traditions they’ve shared for years.
Including getting two or three turkeys at Thanksgiving, to feed anybody and everybody in need.
Over the past 20 years, Braley welcomed hundreds into her home, fostering more than 300 and permanently taking seven of them under her wing.
She and her husband of more than 45 years raised the kids together.
Now, He’s fighting COVID-19 himself in the ICU.
“Right when he made it to the same hospital, that’s when she passed. He just got checked in. They gave me a call so that I could let the kids know,” Bartholomew said.
The family is hopeful dad will make it out okay and that the big family mom created stays together.
“They’ve already lost their first family, this is their second family and we have kids who are older who understand that. Like Jazmin, who’s 18 years old. She lost her mother and now she’s lost her second mother. We don’t want them to go through that experience,” Bartholomew said.
You can donate to the family here.
