It’s the type of music usually heard at celebrations, but this mariachi band isn’t at a party. They are in a parking lot hoping to be heard on the fourth floor of St. Jude Medical Center. Vikki Vargas reports for NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Feb. 15, 2021.
An Orange County woman turned to the healing power of music to send a message of hope and love to her husband.
Patty Trejo organized a mariachi serenade with help from Trío Palenque. they played a special serenade Monday for Joseph Trejo outside the St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, where the father of two is hospitalized for complications from COVID-19.
He is currently unconscious and connected to a ventilator.
“He loved mariachis and the song of his mother and his father is 'La mano de Dios' and he says this is our song, too,” said Patty. "His eyes opened a little, I heard a little cough and I felt that he could hear me and I began to pray the rosary so much. There at that moment he opened his eyes again, and I said, he is telling me that it is okay, that he has to rest a little more."
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As the band played outside in the parking lot, nurses escorted Patty Trejo into the hospital. She used a cell phone to stream the sounds of Trio Palenque at her husband's bedside.
It is a story of love and hope, and a couple that has been devastated by the virus, which first made one of their children sick. It then took the life of a grandfather.
"It makes me very sad, he doesn't like me to cry and he told me that I am the strongest woman he knows. He makes me strong, his love," added Patty.
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Families suffer, but health workers also have to deal with their own sadness.
On this day, the music also gave workers a break.
“I believe that at this moment there are two worlds. The one that we have working here and the one that people live outside. Because here we are seeing what COVID-19 is like, how people die, how people are experiencing this disease, ”said Rosa Galván, a laboratory employee at St. Jude Hospital.
