Towns' mother died last year after a weeks-long battle with the disease.
Karl-Anthony Towns has received his first dose of the COVID vaccine. The 25-year-old NBA player took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a photo of the big moment, days before the 1-year anniversary of his mother's death.
Town's mother, Jacqueline Towns, died on April 13, 2020, after a weeks-long battle with COVID-19.
The Minnesota Timberwolves player's vaccine photo shows him giving a thumbs up to the camera while receiving his first dose of the vaccine in his left arm. "Shot 1 ✅," he captioned the pic.
Towns' family remembered his mother in a statement last year as a woman "who touched everyone she met."
"Jackie, as she was affectionately known among family and friends, had been battling the virus for more than a month when she succumbed on April 13th," the statement read. "Jackie was many things to many people—a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend."
"The matriarch of the Towns family, she was an incredible source of strength; a fiery, caring, and extremely loving person, who touched everyone she met," the statement continued. "Her passion was palpable and her energy will never be replaced."
The family has been hit particularly hard by the virus; Towns and his father both contracted COVID-19 last year, but recovered. However, in addition to his mom, the basketball player said in December that six other family members had died due to complications from the virus, according to ESPN.
"It’s hard," Towns said at the time. "I’ve lost a lot of close family members, people who have raised me, people who have gotten me here."
"I've seen a lot of coffins in the last seven-eight months," he added. "I have a lot of people who have, in my family and my mom's family, gotten COVID. I'm the one looking for answers still, trying to find how to keep them healthy. It's just a lot of responsibility on me to keep my family well-informed and to make all the moves necessary to keep them alive."
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