Elizabeth Warren's brother, Donald Reed Herring, has died from coronavirus

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s oldest brother, Donald Reed Herring, has died from the coronavirus. He was 86. 

“My oldest brother, Don Reed, died from coronavirus on Tuesday evening,” Warren wrote on Twitter Thursday. “He joined the Air Force at 19 and spent his career in the military, including five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam. He was charming and funny, a natural leader.”

“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,” she wrote.

Warren also shared a Boston Globe article on her brother’s death. According to the Globe, Herring tested positive for the coronavirus about three weeks ago, and died at a hospital in Norman, Oklahoma. 

As of Wednesday, there were 2,894 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Oklahoma, and 170 people had died, according to the state’s health department.

The Globe reports that Herring was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, and was hospitalized for pneumonia in February. He was moved to intensive care on April 15, and was not on a ventilator before he died.

The senator wrote that she is “grateful to the nurses and frontline staff who took care” of her brother. “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. I’ll miss you dearly my brother.”