BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (WTVF) — Kathy Baugher's backyard has become a familiar spot for her over the years. She remembers growing up there with her brothers and parents, everyone playing in the big yard out back.
Her backyard is also where she's sat down with NewsChannel 5 twice in as many months, first to talk about both her parents dying of COVID-19, and on Thursday, to talk about her brother, Dan Hester, also passing away from the virus.
"It was a surprise to us," Baugher said.
Hester, a former Brentwood Police officer, had fought COVID-19 for several weeks in the hospital before dying on December 1.
Baugher described her brother as a loyal father, brother and "huge goofball."
But with a disease Baugher has every reason to hate, she says she's found a story of love.
"For me, this story is -- it's a love story -- a story of how God protected our family and took care of our family and brought them home," Baugher said.
Baugher says make no mistake: she has and will continue to grieve, but now with a different view.
"We get so caught up in the small struggles of every day, and even things that we wouldn't call small struggles, but you get a life and death perspective, and suddenly there's a whole lot of perspective to get in all of that," Baugher said.
A reflection as she sits in her familiar backyard, not on what COVID-19 took, but to her, what it gave.
"I have always walked across this backyard and thought, how blessed we were," she said.
