‘She was full of life’: Family mourns Las Cruces educator who died after battle with Covid-19

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - Before losing her battle with Covid-19, Sylvia Garcia was compassionate, generous and a mother to the hundreds of the children she taught in Las Cruces Public Schools.

"She always said, she didn't have three kids," said her son, Dominic Garcia. "She had hundreds."

The beloved educator lost her battle with Covid-19 on Sunday.

Garcia began her teaching career in Las Cruces in 1991. Over the years, she taught at Sunrise Elementary, Hermosa Heights Elementary and Valley View Elementary.

Most recently, the lifelong educator taught at Lynn Middle School. Her son said she would stay late with her students, giving them rides, school supplies and even shoes.

"She said mijo, I was on my lunch break and the students came in. I had a Subway sandwich and before you knew it, I turned around and it was all gone,'" Dominic remembered with a laugh. "'I was like, 'Are you hungry mom?' "She's like "No, mijo, I'm okay.'"

In mid-October, her youngest son said she started to feel Covid-19 symptoms, including fevers and body aches.

"It came to the point where her oxygen dropped too low and she needed to get to the emergency room," Garcia said.

She even took her values as a teacher to Memorial Medical Center. Her son said an employee with the cleaning staff approached her, explaining that her son was struggling at Lynn.

"While my mom was fighting for her life, she grabs her phone and says, 'What's his name? I"ll call right now,'" Garcia recalled. "She can barely even talk."

On November 11th, Garcia began requiring a ventilator to breathe.

"You're going to start thinking, 'Maybe I should have held her tighter or maybe I should have hugged her harder,'" Garcia said. "It's going to all come into realization when you're standing outside that window and you can't go in and tell her that."

Garcia wanted to remind the community that now "is not the time" to see each other, even though it is very difficult to be physically apart.

"For us to see her like that, I wouldn't wish it on anybody," Garcia said. "Nobody. My worst enemy. I wouldn't. Nobody should go through that. Nobody should see their loved one like that. She was full of life."

If you would like to help her family with hospital or funeral expenses, click here.