By Daniella Silva - NBC News
Wyatt Gibson loved superheroes so much that he always wore a cape.
5-year-old Wyatt loved horses, dogs, trees, flowers, and really anything else that would keep him outdoors.
He loved to play with Legos or blocks, things that allowed him to build.
For him,
it was fun,
even trips to the supermarket.
In one video, Wyatt plays a toy guitar while wearing cowboy boots, turns in the grass and sings,
"I love you trees and birds, I love donkeys, and I love dogs."
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Wyatt's was one of many lives cut short by COVID-19 in recent weeks, as the number of cases has risen across the country, driven in large part by the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
Now a family in northwest Georgia mourns the loss of the child who "
brought joy to everything,"
according to his godmother.
"He loved everyone. I mean, he never met a stranger," said Amanda Summey, Wyatt's godmother, tearfully.
"It was all fun. It didn't matter what it was. He was my son's best friend," he added.
"It was perfect. It was absolutely perfect," she assured as her voice cracked.
Wyatt died in his mother's arms on Friday at a children's hospital, having become seriously ill from the coronavirus and suffered a stroke, according to Summey and a statement from Andrea Mitchell, Wyatt's maternal grandmother.
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"Had we been so careful all this time (that) now it (the virus) found us? He was fighting for his own life," Mitchell wrote.
"
His mother,
awake for 4 days,
did not stop encouraging him to keep moving,
fighting and begged him to stay. His father, the backbone of the family, coughing up COVID-19 now himself, was by the side, quietly worried, not believing what he was seeing, "he added.
Wyatt had "his whole life ahead of him"
to become who he wanted to be, Mitchell said.
"Everything that could have contributed to this world is gone now," he
said.
The delta variant now accounts for more than 83% of COVID-19 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Tuesday.
Doctors warn that unvaccinated populations, including
young children, are among the most vulnerable.
COVID-19 vaccines have been licensed for emergency use only for people 12 years and older in the U.S. As of Thursday,
more than four million children had been diagnosed with COVID-19
, about 14.2% of all cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Nearly 340 children 17 and younger have died from COVID-19, according to the latest CDC data, although
serious complications in children remain very rare.
Mitchell and Summey described Wyatt as a healthy child before he fell ill from the coronavirus.
"He was so healthy and happy
," Summey said.
"He had had a cold but nothing else.
(The virus) got hold of him and took him away.
It's crazy," he added.
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The family is
heartbroken
, Summey confessed.
"They are just shells of what were human beings.
It is as if their soul is gone," he said.
"All we know is that
a bright light is gone,"
Mitchel said in his statement, adding that Wyatt has "left rainbows everywhere for us to see."
"There was so much life in this 5-year-old boy. So much joy. So maybe it is not the quantity of life that we will miss. But the quality of life. It was pure
happiness," he
said.