To be sure, the death of the twin doctors pulled deep at the strings of our empathy forcing us to glimpse if only for a moment the torment of a mother who in the span of a day lost not one son but two - to this confounding and cruel virus.
Cherisse Halsall reports on a funeral for two Doctors who won't be forgotten:
I'm standing in front of the family home of Dr.'s Kevin and Kenneth Guerra, the twins and frontline medical personnel who over the weekend died from complications related to COVID-19.
There's a tribute here, building since news of their deaths broke, candles, photos, and a signed football jersey commemorating the lives of the 33-year-old men who left the world far too soon, leaving a void in their hometown and in the communities they touched as public health doctors.00:45
On Saturday when the nation learned of the death of 33-year-old Dr. Kevin Guerra. We also learned that Kevin Guerra's twin brother Dr. Kenneth Guerra had been intubated, fighting for his life and in desperate need of a convalescent plasma treatment from someone who'd already recovered form COVID.
And after hours waiting by the phone there was at least one donation that matched. Dr. Kenneth was now the patient and his colleagues who were now his physicians worked furiously to save him, but to no avail.
And by Sunday morning the Guerra family and the country at large were devastated to learn of the death of the second brother. They'd come into this world together and they'd left it within hours of each other.
That very evening, over 11,000 people virtually attended their Benque Viejo funeral. We saw the graves that had been dug side by side, the outpouring of love from the town of Benque Viejo and no less that the Minister of Health, And we heard this heartbreaking cry from the twins mother.
As teenagers they were football stars on the Mopan tech team and came to be feared and known as "Los Cuaches" but Mayor Gerrardo Sosa coached the brothers in their primary school basketball games.
Gerrardo Sosa, Mayor
"They actually won to represent the Cayo district at the national level, went to Corozal and when we played the tournament they were two starting 5's and actually we won, we won the national championships, I guess that that is the only basketball championship that Mount Caramel has. We used to call them Cuaches because they were twins."
And it was the brothers' love of football that brought them Shamir Pacheco's friendship.
Shamir Pacheco, Friend
"Football players you know it's a family, but these guys were more than family because they were always there, they would always play, they were always laughing, they were always doing anything like rough things, rude things. You had one that was more rude than the next one so one was always telling him ey ey Kenneth keep cool man keep cool."
Efrain Nickelson was Kenneth Guerra's colleague and he also played with him on a hospital football team. But he had a chance to meet Kevin as well and this afternoon as he reminisced about the brothers:
Efrain Nickelson, Radiographer
"He mentioned that he studied to be a radiographer in Guatemala City just like myself, the he went furthered his studies in CUBA to become a general practitioner. Going back to Dr. Kenneth he had this dream of becoming an orthopedic, he shared that with me and they both were good people with a kind heart and always willing to help. How I would describe Dr. Kenneth would be like he possessed this kind of energy that would kind of ionize, but he had this energy that he would push all the negative energy around you and he was going to attract people who would motivate you and who at the end of the day would help you become a better person."
I got a chance to sit down with their father this morning. He declined to give an interview but he told me that his twins had always been inseparable and that If one of them had a fever in the morning the other got it by afternoon. If one got a cut over his left eye the other would have a cut to the right eye by morning.
The death of his sons, men he says were at the height of their productivity, has destroyed him. But he's also grateful and in the same mouthful with which he told me he couldn't speak, he asked, full of sincerity, that on his behalf I thank the nation, thank them for the tributes, for the bright lights and blaring sounds of the motorcades, and for the silence that followed. All marks of respect for the sons he's been made to sacrifice, for the public good.
Kevin Guerra leaves behind one son 6-year-old Fabio Raphael while Kenneth Guerra also leaves a son, 1-year-old Kenneth Alessandro.
