August 19, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Kristin Urquiza gave one of speeches at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech spoke her reality and her truth, that her father died from COVID-19 partially due to the national mismanagement of the COVID-19 response. Her words were powerful and simple. Her words gave me hope because I already knew Kristin Urquiza’s story before it made the stage of the Democratic National Convention.

I talk to my sister often, and she talks to her friends. My sister is one of those empathic people who calls and check up on her friends, and she was calling and checking in with Kristin Urquiza – a friend from college. I already knew about the pain of the Urquiza family. Kristin’s frustrations with the pandemic and the national response. Her frantic travel home to help her parents. A daughter’s inability to be with her father during his last minutes. Kristin’s anger, and how she turned her anger and saddness into something good by writing her truth. And that truth and her single human story may have helped change this election.

But the most hopeful thing I find in her story is that I am part of her community through my sister. And when her father died, it rippled through her community and reached me. And although you may have heard it through the Democratic National Convention, it touches you as well because I am connected with her. Kristin’s story is real, and she told it without any agenda other than her love of her father, love of her community and love of her country. She doesn’t want this to happen to your father. And with that, my sister called my parents and told them Kristin’s story. It’s not something my parents wanted to hear, because they have a different political philosophy, but it’s a story that needed to be told. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/08/17/kristin-urquiza-viral-obituary-dnc/3385464001/ and https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2020/07/10/maryvale-family-blames-gov-ducey-fathers-death-covid-19/5395440002/