A Young Life Cut Short: Drew Curtis B Diggs

That’s our son Drew in happier times on June 23 when he made his mother, father and the whole family so proud, graduating from college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Lorma Colleges in the Philippines.

His immediate goal was to serve the people of his home province of La Union at the start of his career. His dream was to eventually move to the U.S and complete the licensing requirements to become an RN and continue his nursing career helping patients in his new home country. After raising and guiding him through the ups and downs of his formative years, we were so excited to see where he was headed in his career and his life. We will never know what he could have achieved and the many lives he would have touched, helped and inspired.

Ordinarily I wouldn't be seeking help like this, but after representing my country for most of the past 30+ years teaching English as a Second Language throughout Asia and Saudi Arabia, I arrived back in New Jersey in February 2020, just before COVID-19 started its grip on the U.S. Before I could even get resettled, buy a car, my own place and get a job, I was welcomed by the NJ state government with widespread business, government-office, university and college closings, stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and other COVID-19 related restrictions.

The government also promised to help the millions of unemployed like me through the CARES Act and its federally funded pandemic assistance programs. However, the State's haphazard and ill-prepared execution of these programs prevented me from applying for assistance until the middle of 2021, before then taking until the middle of 2022 to wrongly reject my claim. Now, 3 years later, I'm still battling the NJ Department of Labor in a second appeal of my claim denial.

The State of New Jersey’s mishandling of COVID-19 preventive measures and pandemic-related unemployment assistance caused me 22 months of unemployment, the depletion of my savings and retirement funds, a fall into serious credit card debt when I was forced to use them to pay monthly bills, apartment rent, and for food and other necessities.

When I finally was able to continue working again, I had to flee the U.S. and return to teaching in Asia (I’m now in Taiwan) in order to have a realistic chance to rebuild my life and finances, and to finally see both of my kids and extended family here after years apart. At almost 61 years old, I don't have so many years of opportunity to recover from the pandemic debacle and to support my other child, a 12-year-old boy, through his formative years the way I had planned.

What first looked like maybe a few months of weathering COVID-19 and New Jersey’s draconian preventive measures in early 2020 to a return to normal life has instead turned into a multi-year nightmare that continues to severely cripple my life and impact the lives of my loved ones until now. For the past 20 months that I have been working abroad I have been just getting by month-to-month while I continue to work my way back into better-paying work and eventually the ability to resume paying off my credit card and start saving again. It’s been a long, hard road.

Very regrettably and to my son’s great disappointment, I was unable to be there with him for that very happy and seminal moment in his life when he graduated college. It hurts much more now knowing that maybe my being there could have made some difference in whatever was happening with him, or at the very least I would have been able to celebrate his college graduation with him and family.

Now I just want to be with him one more time to honor his life and tell him how proud I am of what he accomplished in his 23 years with us and how much I love him and miss him. His mother and I are humbly asking for your help with the expenses for a simple and nice viewing, memorial, funeral services and burial for Drew, and my roundtrip flight ticket between Taipei and Manila and simple accommodations in the town where the funeral will be held.

My Precious Son: Your father's and mother’s love for you will never die.