On this Thanksgiving, KUAM News sat down with Savvy Diaz, who lost her father Roy Anthony Muna to COVID-19. She reminds us - and the entire island community - of what her father told her: God and family are essential.

There are cherished memories for a lifetime even with a life taken too soon.

"What he imparted with us is that the most important thing is to remember what is most important and that is God and then family. With that being said he was always around. He was very present in my sister and I’s life. He actually passed away the day before my mom and dad’s 36th wedding anniversary."

Savvy Diaz will always feel her dad Roy Anthony Muna’s presence -- one filled with immense love.

"Him and my mom they started an appraisal company and from there they did real estate and they always had their office in the home. So it was cool watching them work together, do everything together. And they had a very good relationship with each other and I think that really set an example for my marriage and my sister’s marriage -- what love looks like," she said.

A hopeful, persevering love that daily reports can never capture. Her father passed away last November -- Guam’s 82nd COVID-19 related death.

She said, fighting back tears, "It’s a very, it was a very surreal experience because you are just trying to support your loved one from afar."

At least 263 other families on Guam are familiar with the gravity of this grief.

"His experience was really tough," Diaz said. "He had a lot of moments where he called us and he was struggling. Not being able to breathe is terrifying. You try and hold your breath for a little bit to imagine just taking small breaths."

Virtual rosaries took place of in-person ones before her entire family could share the same breath to lay him to rest.

"It may have been different if I had been able to be by his side. So that would’ve made it much easier. It would have been easier to get over...or to heal from and just knowing how hard it is on people not being able to breathe and being scared by themselves. So when I see those numbers I feel for the families, as well," she said.

That empathy turned into a mission: she launched the Roy Anthony Muna Project.

"In the last hours of his death and as hard as it was for him to talk he did say that the doctors and the nurses did a great job. I know he wanted us to know that because it was hard for us to know that we were not able to be there. And so I took that as he wants us to move forward and be positive and not dwell on the hardship that he went through so that is why we were inspired to do this," she said.

It provides communication boards for patients to use to talk with loved ones easier. It’s already giving voice to people in the states, Guam, and Saipan.

"It is something positive," she said. "We want to help other patients that are going through the same thing."