"And I'm surrounded by all my wife's stuff and the home we built together. "I'm left alone and now his room is completely empty," Chris said. With everything gone, the apartment seems bigger. In order to make Gabriel feel more comfortable in his new home, Chris gave his biological father everything he'd ever bought for Gabriel, leaving him with an empty bedroom in his Ormond Beach apartment. You know, it's not only how I ended up losing the love of my life, but I lost the biggest piece of her, which is her son, because her son is now living with the father for the first time in his life." I mean, I was there to see every moment of his life," Chris said of Gabriel. "It's kind of heartbreaking, that entire process. Following Ashley's death, Gabriel's biological father moved him out of Smith's home and into his own. It's just me."Īshley leaves behind not only her husband, but her 8-year-old son from an earlier relationship, Gabriel, whom Chris has helped raise since he was an infant. "Now we're broken not only heartbroken, but we're financially broken," Chris said. "Well, I'm financially broken now. He's also expecting to receive medical bills in the future, because while Ashley had Medicare, he doesn't think it will cover all of the expenses. While Ashley's symptoms ended up being deadly, Chris said his symptoms were never severe enough to warrant a visit to the hospital.Ĭhris said after the funeral, he hopes to return to work full time so that he can save up for the headstone, which on average costs anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. But since he and Ashley contracted COVID-19 in early August, he's only worked a handful of shifts. "I'm not too worried about that, I just want to get her buried … have a little bit of peace."Ĭhris works as a manager at the Wendy's off Williamson Boulevard in Ormond Beach. "That's just a bare minimum funeral, I'm not going to have a headstone or grave marker right away, but I'm going to have a temporary one that's free by the funeral home for 90 days," Chris said. He still needs another $3,290 to cover the basic funeral. More: Port Orange mother fights for her life against COVID-19 after emergency C-sectionĪs of Thursday afternoon, Chris had raised $5,710 through the GoFundMe campaign he originally created to help pay hospital expenses. Nursing homes: Florida leads nation in nursing home COVID-19 deaths among residents and staff, AARP saysĭeath data: Florida's county-level COVID-19 death reports publicly available for first time in months "I didn't realize how expensive it was going to be." While he has life insurance, Ashley did not. "Prior to getting married, she told me she wanted to be buried, not cremated," Smith said. 28 to raise the funds so that he can bury Ashley in their joined plot. Ashley, 13 weeks pregnant, was hospitalized with COVID-19 on Aug.
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