From his Garland home, the significance behind even the most mundane moments isn’t lost on Rene Granado.
"A day doesn't go by that I don't think about the gift and blessings we've been given by Fabian still being alive and being here,” said Granado.
It was one year ago that Granado was sitting by his son Fabian’s hospital bed after the then-27-year-old, described as healthy and strong, contracted COVID-19.
"I couldn’t stop coughing,” said Fabian.
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Fabian was intubated, sedated and forced to rely on machines to survive.
A month and a half after he was admitted to a Florida hospital where he was in school, Fabian woke to an entirely new reality.
"I couldn't really move my hands. All my muscle was gone. I was a sack of potatoes just about,” he said.
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During that time, Granado said doctors prepared him to say goodbye.
“Fabian, if you need to go Mijo, then you go. Daddy will be alright,” Granado told his son.
Fabian’s lungs had stopped functioning. Doctors told the family a transplant would likely be necessary.
Granado relied on prayer.
“I had to give up everything and in my faith say, ‘OK, God. Your will first,’" he said.
Fabian was forced to make the decision to survive.
“All I remember saying was, ‘I don't want to die,’” said Fabian.
Fabian worked his way back from the brink, slowly finding his strength and relearning how to stand on his own two feet.
"COVID has been hell. If you can personify it, it's the devil incarnate,” said Granado.
It would be six months before Fabian was released from the hospital without the lung transplant doctors first thought necessary.
He returned home to Garland where it would be several more months before he could breathe without an oxygen tube. Finally last week, Fabian returned to work, not as an underwater welder as he was training for, but part-time at the State Fair of Texas.
"I'm still working. I'm still trying to focus on my health, focus on trying to live life to the fullest,” said Fabian.
It’s a step that came a full year after COVID threatened to claim his life.
"Every day I wonder, why was Fabian given the grace and gift to continue living when so many others didn't? But then I just have to remind myself, this is far beyond my understanding,” said Granado.
