PENDLETON — Gail Wickers knew something was terribly wrong with her husband.

It had been three days since Roger Wickers, 70, tested positive for COVID-19. His breath was shallow as he lay on the couch at their home in Umatilla on the morning of Aug. 22. Wickers wanted to take him straight to the emergency department, but he insisted they wait until his appointment at 3 p.m. that day.

About 30 minutes after Gail dropped her husband off at Good Shepherd Medical Center, Hermiston, health care workers called and told her Roger’s blood oxygen was far too low. He was in the emergency department fighting for his life.

Gail called again and again. Health care workers told her that Roger’s heart was beating rapidly and they administered heart medicine and remdesivir. A day later, health care workers told her that Roger required intubation and they needed to fly him to another facility.

Before he left that afternoon, Gail asked to speak to her husband, but health care workers told her Roger could no longer speak. She demanded they put the phone next to his ear so she could say goodbye.

“When we were talking to him on the phone, I could hear him struggling, trying to make sounds,” she said.

Emergency services flew him nearly 200 miles to Providence Portland Medical Center. By that point, health care workers told her there was little they could do.

Roger Wickers died at 6:14 a.m. on Aug. 24. He was 70 years old.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without him,” Wickers said while writing his obituary two days after he died.

COVID-19 deaths follow delta surge

As of Friday, Aug. 27, at least 17 Umatilla County residents who tested positive for COVID-19 have died since the month began, according to the county health department. That total does not include Roger, as the county has yet to receive note of his death, said Joe Fiumara, the county’s health director.

Roger was not vaccinated against COVID-19, Gail said. Neither is Gail, who is recovering from COVID-19 and whose son also contracted the virus. She remains uninterested in getting the vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death from the disease.

Umatilla County continues to break grim pandemic records amid the delta variant crisis flooding hospitals across the county, Oregon and the nation. The county reported four COVID-19 deaths Aug. 25, a single-day pandemic record, one more death on Aug. 26 and two more on Aug 27. For two straight weeks, the county has reported a pandemic-high seven COVID-19 deaths.

Umatilla County has reported 115 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic started in March 2020.

A life together

Gail knew from the moment she saw Roger’s photo online that they were supposed to be together. He had gentle eyes. He was patient, hard working and had a great sense of humor. And he had faith in God, which was essential to Gail.

The couple met through a dating website. In July 2002, Gail left home in La Grande and flew down to visit him in San Diego, where they fell in love over walks on nearby beaches. On one of their first dates, he played The Beatles’ “Blackbird” for her.

“Every time I hear that song,” she said, “I think of him.”

Two months later, he came to La Grande and met her five children, who instantly adored him, she said. Within six months, the couple began what would be an 18-year marriage.

After living briefly with Roger in Southern California, Gail knew she needed to be closer to her children. So Roger sold his beloved Toyota Land Cruiser so they would have enough money to make the move to Hermiston. Bearing their first and only child, Blake, they packed up a U-Haul and headed north in May 2004.

With funds from the sold Toyota, the Wickers drove around Hermiston, searching for work and a place to live. After living briefly in a motel, they moved into Sundial Apartments. Luckily for them, employees at the complex were so impressed with Roger’s professionalism they offered him a job as manager. He accepted.

Roger eventually found work at the Bishop’s Central Storehouse for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, where he remained for 15 years and where, it is believed, he would eventually come into contact with the virus that would take his life.

On a sunny winter day in 2009, the couple found their home. Blissfully oblivious to the holes in the wall, the cat pee-stained carpet and the dented garage door that would prevent them from getting a loan for months, Gail looked around and knew the house was where they belonged.

“There were many things wrong with the house,” she said. “But my eyes just didn’t see any of that. It was like a dream. I just had a feeling and I didn’t see anything that was wrong with it until we came back.”

Roger quickly grew close to Gail’s family. He became close friends with her ex-husband. He showed his skills as a handyman while repairing utilities for friends and family. Today, the deck he was repairing in their backyard remains unfinished.

And he always found time to travel with Gail. A Holiday Inn Resort in Newport on the Oregon coast, near the sea cliffs and where they could view a lighthouse on the horizon, was one of their favorite places to travel. The couple had plans to buy a recreational vehicle and travel together. Roger only needed to work two more years to pay off their mortgage.

“We just had a wonderful life, traveling, going places,” she said.

As with any family, the little moments are what Gail holds closest: watching movies; eating ice cream (his favorite flavor was salted caramel); Roger wrestling with Blake on a futon in the living room.

And her house and Facebook are full of images with every memory: standing in a cave on a San Diego beach; walking a beach with metal detectors; playing in a rock and roll band in a living room; dancing with Gail in the street at a car show in Walla Walla.

“He was gentle, loving and kind,” she said. “He had a manner about him that was just so soothing. He just had a calming, soothing effect on anybody he spoke with. He was loved by so many people.”

She added: “It’ll be a great meeting when we all meet in heaven together.”