Anderson Cooper Says 'He Wrote a Note,' Almost Loses It

Anderson Cooper was nearly overcome by emotion Friday while interviewing a woman whose 32-year-old husband died of the coronavirus and left a heart-wrenching note, People reports. "It's very surreal," Katie Coelho told the CNN host about her husband, Jonathan. "I keep thinking in my head, there’s going to be a time where I've been without my husband longer than I've been with him, and it hurts a lot." She said their children—Braedyn, 2, and Penelope, 10 months—had been FaceTiming with Jonathan during his hospitalization, but Katie chose to give Jonathan a break when they took him off a ventilator. That turned out to be the night before he died. The hospital's call came at 2am on Wednesday: "Before I even answered it, I just said, 'Oh, God,'" said Katie through tears.

Cooper got emotional too when talking about Jonathan's message for his family: "He wrote a note," said Cooper, who needed a moment to control himself. "Part of it reads, 'I love you guys with all my heart and you’ve given me the best life I could have ever asked for.'" But the most heartbreaking moment may have been Katie's description of filming her son—whose health issues include Cerebral Palsy—as he hit a button saying, "My dad's my best friend." Katie said, "that's the last video the nurse showed my husband before he went into cardiac arrest." Jonathan was a cancer survivor who was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26. Their children have also tested positive, but Katie hasn't yet been tested. There's a GoFundMe page for the family. (Read more coronavirus stories.)