Art Bori, 65, skydiver and devoted food bank volunteer

Our series, Lives Lost, remembers loved ones who have died in the pandemic. You can share an obituary of someone special to you by filling out the form below.

Gentle. That’s how people often described Art Bori.

Yet he pursued his interests at full force, from skydiving to wildlife photography to his volunteer work at the Snohomish County Food Bank. He loved to travel off the beaten path with his wife, Wendy, to places like The Falkland Islands, Brazil's Panatal, and The Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia.

He was born at a US Army base in Okinawa, Japan, and his family relocated to Tacoma, WA, when he was a child.

Bori died from Covid-19 on March 31. He was 65.

His wife, Wendy Bori, shared this remembrance with KUOW Editor Liz Jones.

“W

e actually met working in IT together back in the early 90s. We were colleagues and friends and then about 10 years later started dating.

Someone had a dinner party, like a reunion, so we cross paths again there. I remembered looking around the room and he was looking straight at me and our eyes just connected, and then he waited until the end of the party and walked me out to my car.

We had just a really amazing marriage -- we’d laugh every day.

He used to do competitive skydiving for years and years. And then as he grew older, he got really seriously into photography and we both actually loved wildlife photography and would travel to some interesting destinations.

He'd been retired for five years and was busy all the time. He was a very devoted food bank volunteer. He donated blood. I was about to retire in June, and we had lots of plans to do some other domestic travel, mostly to the national parks.

The week before he got sick, he was going to the food bank every day to help out. He was also going to grocery stores to pick up food to sort of stock up our house.

It was a Sunday night when he started getting the dry cough that you hear about, and then by the morning he had a fever of 102.4.

It went serious very quickly for him. He was in the ER on the middle of the week on Wednesday, and then by Friday we called 911 because he was having so much trouble breathing.

He was in the hospital for a week and a half on a ventilator, and his lungs just never recovered. I couldn't be with him; that’s truly one of the hardest things.

I think that the hardest part for him was when they were going to put him on a ventilator. He knew that meant his odds weren't very good. I think it was incredibly scary and I really would have wanted to have been there with him.

He was sedated the whole time on the ventilator, and when they were going to get ready to turn it off, they put his cell phone up to his ear. I could talk to him and say my goodbyes, and I can only hope he could hear me.

The nurses at Providence were just amazing. They had turned on some soft classical music and then two other nurses who had cared for him those 10 days, they also came into the room to be with him. So he wasn't alone. You know, they were doing the very best they could and you could tell it was really hard for them as well.

I think of all the people who knew him who sent cards or called, I would say 90% of the people would use the word ‘gentle.’

Just a very gentle, kind soul.

Just a really kind human being.

A loss for the world.”

KUOW is creating an online memorial to honor the lives lost to Covid-19.

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