Days after 24th birthday, Covid kills techie twins

Days after 24th birthday, Covid kills techie twins

Piyush.Rai@timesgroup.com

Meerut:18.05.2021 

Gregory Raymond Raphael remembers the day clearly. April 23, 1997. The delivery, doctors said, had been successful and his wife Soja was fine. Heart beating with joy, he had rushed to the hospital. The babies, twins, looked alike. The young parents named them Joefred Varghese Gregory and Ralfred George Gregory. Having lived a life where they did almost everything together — both chose computer engineering, both had jobs in Hyderabad — they caught the deadly fever the same day, on April 24. Last week, after struggling with Covid-19, they died hours apart on May13 and May14.

Raphael said he almost knew that if his sons had to make it, they would come home together. Or they wouldn’t. “Whatever happened to one, it happened to the other,” he said.

ONE IN LIFE AND DEATH:

Ralfred George Gregory (L) and Joefred Varghese Gregory

‘Twins wanted to give us a better life’

“That’s how it was since their birth. I had told my wife after we got news that Jeofred had died that Ralfred won’t return home alone either. They died on May 13 and May 14, hours apart.”

He said, “The twins had a lot of plans for us. They wanted to give us a better life. As teachers we have struggled much to bring up the children well and they wanted to give us back, everything from money to happiness. Before they died, they were planning to leave for Korea and then perhaps Germany for work. I don’t know why god punished us like this.” The Raphaels have a third son, the eldest one, Nelfred.

Residents of Meerut’s Cantonment area, the family initially treated the brothers at home, thinking the fever would subside. But it didn’t.

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