Deo Mohan Persaud, an overseas-based Guyanese real estate investor, lost his fight to the novel coronavirus in May at the St. Petersburg Nursing Home, Florida.
Persaud died on May 30, at the age of 80, according to a Tampa Bay Times report.
However, in his final hours, as his oxygen levels dropped and his kidneys shut down and his heart rate slowed, he was not alone.
“The phone by his hospital bed sat off the hook. On the line were his wife of 56 years and their three children and grandchildren all talked to him through the night, recording part of their conservation,” the report said.
Being intubated and sedated, Persaud could not respond but the doctor said he could hear them, so they kept talking, the report said.
It also revealed that Persaud was a former resident of Strathspey, East Coast Demerara, and had worked as a stock boy at a general store, in the mining town of Linden. He later opened his own shop, with the help of his former boss.
He later moved back home and started a small store in the town of Annandale.
At age 24, his marriage to his wife, Sylvia Persaud, was arranged.
The report said together they worked 20-hour days running the store, then building another in a nearby village.
In 1985, the report said, in the midst of political persecution of Indo-Guyanese, armed soldiers arrived in the middle of a sweltering day, sent customers away and pulled a truck up to the back of the shop. They left the shelves empty.
Soon, Persaud, his wife and the three children they had by then left for the United States.
Persaud settled in New Jersey, where he found work as a stock boy, and he was later introduced to friends who helped him discover real estate investment. “He bought a house and managed properties and settled into life with the comforts of his wife’s curries and rotis and the knowledge that they had very little, but they were safe,” the report added.
