‘I really thought I was going to bring him home.’ Burley pastor dies from COVID-19
Pastor Maria Fernandez promised her husband that if something were to happen to him, she would continue the ministry they had created together.
But she never imagined it would ever come to that. She thought she would never lose him.
“He was so strong,” she said.
Even when the new coronavirus came to town, the possibility of her husband’s death didn’t cross her mind.
“We were always very careful. We always followed the rules,” she said. “If we needed something from the store, my husband would stay in the car.
“He’d say, ‘There’s no need for both of us to go in.’”
Pastor Rogelio Fernandez Sr. died Aug. 24, two weeks after contracting COVID-19.
The two came to the Magic Valley a half-dozen years ago and founded Iglesia El Buen Samaritano — The Good Samaritan Church — in Burley. They purchased the small Episcopal Church on Oakley Avenue, and, starting with a tiny congregation, built up their bilingual, nondenominational Christian ministry to the point of needing a larger building.
“My husband’s dream was to build a bigger church with classrooms for the kids,” Maria said.
The Fernandezes started a church in American Falls before coming to the Magic Valley.
“We did a lot of ministry work here, so we felt the need,” Maria said. “I would hold women’s conferences for those in need and I saw there was no one to meet that need.”
She also ministered to prisoners in jail.
“God called us into this ministry,” she said.
Waking up to COVID-19
On Aug. 11, a Tuesday, both pastors woke up with symptoms of COVID-19 at their home in Burley.
“We had sore throats and body aches,” Maria said. “My husband was worse than I was.”
When his breathing became labored later that afternoon, she drove him to the Burley hospital. Staff wheeled him away but she wasn’t allowed to follow.
“I didn’t want to leave, so I stood outside the hospital for six hours,” she said. “People would walk by and give me water to drink.”
At 10 p.m., the staff asked her to come in. Rogelio, 74, was restless and they thought it might help him to see his wife.
Thirty minutes later, they sent her husband in an ambulance to St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center. The couple’s son, Roy Fernandez, drove his mother to his home in Twin Falls.
Maria woke up the next day at her son’s home and couldn’t breathe. She was admitted to St. Luke’s, where she was allowed to visit her husband in his room.
“I saw what doctors and nurses went through. They were all wearing masks,” she told the Times-News. “People should watch out for others even if they don’t want to take care of themselves.”
She stayed at the hospital for three days.
“The staff at St. Luke’s were amazing. They didn’t treat us like patients — they were family,” she said. “They cried with us. We could see their love.”
Soon, the couple’s three daughters arrived with their families from out of state. They camped outside Rogelio’s ground-floor room and watched him through his window.
“They were at his window 24/7. They never left his side day or night,” Maria said. “They wanted Daddy to know they were there with him.”
The family thought he was getting better.
“I really thought I was going to bring him home,” she said. “I never thought I was going to lose him.”
Then her husband lost his eyesight.
“I told the Lord I will take him like that,” she said. “I will be his eyes.”
Next, he survived a stroke.
On Aug. 23, one of the nurses asked him how long he and Maria had been married.
“‘Fifty years,’” she said, recalling her husband’s words.
“The nurse asked him, ‘Would you marry her again?’” she said.
Wiping away tears, Maria, 65, again repeated his words.
“‘Yes, I’d marry her for another 50 years.’”
The nurses’ eyes met.
“Let’s make this happen,” the nurses thought to themselves and they arranged for the couple to renew their vows the following day in front of a minister.
“I told them, ‘How about 1 p.m.?’” Maria said.
“How about 11 a.m.?” the nurse answered.
Rogelio Fernandez died at 10:02 that next morning with the minister at his side and his wife at his door. His children and grandchildren lined the hall waiting to see him.
The hardest day
Rogelio was close to his church members.
“Rogelio was an awesome man,” Maria said. “He was a man of integrity. A man of his word.”
His death “happened too fast,” she said. “A lot of the church is still hurting.”
Her first Sunday back in front of her congregation was the hardest.
“We were happy working together in the ministry,” she said. “I miss him so much.”
Maria says she wishes others would take the virus seriously enough to take precautions and to wear masks.
“It’s not as painful as losing the one you love,” she said.
“There’s not one day I don’t cry for him. I see him everywhere.”
This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 4:00 AM.