This story is part of Loved and Lost, a statewide media collaboration that strives to call and celebrate the lives of each and every New Jersey resident who has died of COVID-19. To be more informed and send a call you enjoyed to a profile, visit dearandlostnj.com.
Hector Garcia was an avid father who used a camera to capture his son playing football or participating in piano recitals.
Garcia, of South Hackensack, so close and supporting his son, Steve, that when the teenager accepted at Boston University, the school of his dreams, first called his father.
“He’s very excited,” recalls Steve, 19. “He called me a champion and said, “Congratulations, champ.”
And when Steve wondered if his parents could pay tuition, his father dispelled his fears.
“He said we were going to check to locate something, that we’re going to find a solution,” Steve said.
Steve Garcia, who had just finished his first semester of college, lost his father on April 24. Hector Garcia 58.
Garcia was born in Colombia and worked as a schoolteacher before immigrating to the United States about 20 years ago. He has had jobs in New Jersey, most recently at a local printing press, his son said.
Garcia enjoyed being briefed on new things and traveling.
When Steve was four years old, Garcia made the decision to be informed to play the piano, so he bought a keyboard. But it was his son who was informed to play first and began teaching him.
Beloved and lost: portraits of our family, friends and neighbors in New Jersey taken through the coronavirus
Steve’s love of music grew over the years and, when he was in college, his parents enrolled him at Thurnauer School of Music in Tenafly. None of his son’s performances were lost.
Garcia also enjoyed reading and talking to his son about what he was learning at school. His last verbal exchange was about the books Steve had been asked to read in college. Garcia looked for what his son was learning so he could talk about it later.
“It’s very academic,” Steve said. “We talk about history, we also talk about French, and we talk about philosophy, literature and books.
“Sometimes he would ask me to translate something, like an article I’d seen,” he added.
Garcia, his wife, Maria Gutierrez, and Steve traveled to Europe in 2018 and 2019. They would spend hours in museums and plan to make trips.
“He liked to be more informed about other cultures,” he says.