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Always passionate about the holiday season, Alicia Jacoby Chorba initially contemplated skipping the Christmas tree and any attempts at festivity this year because she still aches over the loss of her husband, James.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to find joy in the holidays as best as I can because I know that&rsquo;s what he would want,&rdquo; the Butler Township woman said of James, a 49-year-old longtime sales rep at Pepsi Co. who died from the coronavirus in May.
				Her neighbor talked her into putting up the tree and came over to provide support. Chorba hung &ldquo;just married&rdquo; ornaments with their names from their wedding time seven years ago. Also added were two new ornaments given as gifts in memory of her husband.
				Honoring his wishes, she keeps his ashes with her in a memorial display in her living room. Known for his wit and mechanical abilities, James was in good health before he was exposed to the coronavirus. In pain and with his organs shutting down, Chorba and his two adult children were forced to make the excruciating decision to remove him from a ventilator.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m still grieving. I&rsquo;m still in counseling. I&rsquo;m trying to look at things in a positive way,&rdquo; she said.
				Area attorney Chris Slusser also feels a void in the first holiday season without his 84-year-old mother, known by many in the Hazleton area as Dolly, a resident of the Providence Place Assisted Living facility in Butler Township who died from the coronavirus in April.
				His family captured Dolly&rsquo;s essence in her obituary, saying she was a &ldquo;beautiful, sensitive, direct, intelligent woman of conviction who had a gift to see into a person&rsquo;s heart.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;She used this gift as the matriarch of the family to create strong family bonds and a depth of love that will carry through the family for generations,&rdquo; it said.
				Slusser said his mother briefly seemed to be pulling through after her fever subsided, but she rapidly experienced difficulty breathing. He momentarily teared up and struggled to speak recalling the agony of not being permitted to be with her.
				&ldquo;That was the worst &mdash; not being able to comfort her,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been horrible. Our family is a very close bunch, and after losing her, my brother, sister and the rest of our family were not even able to grieve properly because we couldn&rsquo;t get together due to the pandemic restrictions.&rdquo;
				Dolly loved Christmas and helping her late husband, Bruce, when he dressed up as Santa in front of their Hazleton area residence to greet lines of excited children.
				Slusser misses her special Thanksgiving dish of dumplings and chunks of fried salami.
				&ldquo;It sounds horrible, but it&rsquo;s something our family loves,&rdquo; he said.
				Before she reluctantly passed the torch a few years ago, Dolly relished hosting Christmas Eve dinners that always included pierogies.
				Slusser takes comfort in a Christmas angel figurine she purchased for him years ago that he carefully places on a living room table for the holidays.
				&ldquo;My mom loved angels, and every time I put that out, I think of her,&rdquo; he said.
				His mother had bounced back from pneumonia before, but her health conditions probably made her more susceptible to COVID-19, he said.
				Slusser has encountered many acquaintances in recent months who have become infected or lost family members.
				&ldquo;I feel we&rsquo;re walking between raindrops because the personal impacts have been really significant,&rdquo; he said.
				Thankful for survival
				Two area men &mdash; Luzerne County tourism head Theodore Wampole and Hanover Township Manager Sam Guesto &mdash; say they have a greater appreciation for their health this holiday after surviving difficult battles with the coronavirus.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s awful. I don&rsquo;t want to see anybody have to go through this,&rdquo; said Wampole, 60. &ldquo;It was bad.&rdquo;
				He started experiencing symptoms a day or two before Thanksgiving and developed severe, relentless body aches and loss of smell and taste. Unable to think about food, he lost 15 pounds.
				&ldquo;Your body just hurts constantly,&rdquo; he said.
				When his oxygen level dropped, his doctor performed tests on his chest and diagnosed him with COVID-19 pneumonia. The doctor administered a steroid and put him on an antibiotic, prescription cough medicine and a round-the-clock rotation of extra strength, over-the-counter pain medication.
				&ldquo;It was a horrible, horrible four to five days before I started to see some sort of recovery,&rdquo; he said.
				His wife and two sons also were infected, even though they all have been diligent about wearing masks, staying home as much as possible and avoiding crowds, he said.
				His sons recovered quickly, but his wife also is still dealing with lingering symptoms, he said.
				Wampole said he was scared and doubtful at times that he would make it without requiring hospitalization.
				&ldquo;I was in rough shape. You get to the point where you just don&rsquo;t know if or when you&rsquo;re going to get better,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like the flu or a cold, where you know what stage you are at and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.&rdquo;
				The family quarantined throughout the period, and Wampole said he will be a more fierce advocate for mask wearing and other protocols now that he&rsquo;s experienced what is at stake.
				&ldquo;You can still get it, but if you take the precautions, it lessens the chance of you getting it. That&rsquo;s my takeaway,&rdquo; he said.
				Wampole said the coronavirus already dampened his holiday season because he can&rsquo;t be with his mother, who resides at Wesley Village in Pittston.
				He broke down picturing her going through the holidays without him. He only got to see her twice through arranged visits since April 1 and wasn&rsquo;t with her when she turned 82 on Dec. 1.
				&ldquo;I support everything they&rsquo;re doing to keep the residents safe, but it&rsquo;s tough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s probably tougher on my mom.&rdquo;
				Many have sacrificed and endured pain this year, including the local restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and hotels he works to promote in his county position.
				He&rsquo;s learned of several high school friends who lost loved ones to COVID-19.
				&ldquo;A lot of people are suffering terribly, and your heart breaks for them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hopefully with the vaccines and people doing what they&rsquo;re supposed to be doing, we can get back to something that will be the new normal.&rdquo;
				Wampole said his sense of taste still comes and goes, but he has most of his energy back and only some lingering congestion.
				He profusely thanked family, friends and his bosses &mdash; county Administrative Division Head David Parsnik and county Manager C. David Pedri &mdash; for a steady stream of text messages offering support and directives to concentrate on getting better.
				Programmed with a strong work ethic common in this area, Wampole said he was at a loss doing nothing.
				&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the kind of thing that really keeps you going,&rdquo; he said of the messages, getting emotional again discussing them.
				Guesto, 52, said his breathing was so compromised by the coronavirus at one point, he struggled to climb the stairs to go to the bathroom. He was forced to pause at each step and take another longer break at the top to catch his breath before proceeding.
				&ldquo;It was like Mount Everest,&rdquo; he said.
				This is a man who has no prior health conditions and religiously exercises six days a week.
				He felt flu-like symptoms &mdash; fatigue, aches, dizziness &mdash; the first week in December. He had a fever in the 104-degree range for two days.
				After five days of &ldquo;real bad&rdquo; aches he felt throughout his body and intense chills, he was finally able to walk around again and thought it was a sign he was recovering.
				But the next day he awoke feeling like he had hundreds of pounds sitting on his chest.
				&ldquo;My lung capacity was basically shallow breaths,&rdquo; he said.
				Altogether, he was sick for 13 days &mdash; seven of them off his feet because of his breathing.
				&ldquo;I dropped 17 pounds because I couldn&rsquo;t eat or do anything,&rdquo; Guesto said.
				Guesto remained in his basement the entire time &mdash; except for the &ldquo;extreme battle&rdquo; to reach the upstairs bathroom &mdash; because he didn&rsquo;t want infect his wife and three children. He also didn&rsquo;t want to upset his children &mdash; ages 1, 5 and 9 &mdash; by allowing them to see him in that state.
				His wife and baby also had some more mild symptoms. His wife lost her sense of taste and smell, but he didn&rsquo;t. He survived on fluids and resisted frequent urges to head to the hospital, saying he was determined to ride it out at home if possible.
				Forced to remain as still as possible with his eyes closed for most of the ordeal, Guesto willed himself calm the anxiety of not being able to fully breathe. Most of the time, he concentrated on pleading for recovery.
				&ldquo;I prayed nonstop to get through it,&rdquo; Guesto said. &ldquo;It was the sickest I&rsquo;ve ever been. It was very scary.&rdquo;
				The experience was &ldquo;surreal&rdquo; because a week before, he had been effortlessly jogging on a treadmill in that same basement.
				Like Wampole, Guesto said he will forever be grateful to those who sent messages of support and dropped off groceries for his family in their time of need.
				Similarly, Guesto said he was careful about wearing his mask and washing up.
				He still has a hoarse voice and lingering symptoms but estimates he&rsquo;s now at about 85% of his usual energy level.
				Facing the coronavirus threat head-on &ldquo;absolutely&rdquo; enhanced his appreciation of the holiday season and his determination to take nothing for granted, he said.
				Guesto said he&rsquo;s &ldquo;not sweating the small stuff anymore.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;This was an experience where you see how quickly something could change in your life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an eye opener - a real eye opener about what we should be concerned with.&rdquo;

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Coronavirus losses and struggles leave their mark on area families this holiday season