Former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's oldest brother, Donald Reed Herring, died on Tuesday night after contracting the novel coronavirus, she confirmed on Thursday.
Herring, 86, known as Don Reed, was an Air Force pilot who flew hundreds of combat missions in Vietnam.
"He was charming and funny, a natural leader," Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, wrote on Twitter. "What made him extra special was his smile—quick and crooked, it always seemed to generate its own light, one that lit up everyone around him."The outbreak has prevented family members from visiting sickened relatives in medical facilities, a circumstance that Warren's family also was forced to endure.
"I'm grateful to the nurses and frontline staff who took care of him, but it's hard to know that there was no family to hold his hand or to say 'I love you' one more time—and no funeral for those of us who loved him to hold each other close," Warren wrote on Twitter. "I'll miss you dearly my brother."