COVID and the
grief we still carry
ISSUE 01
cw: suicide, hate crimes, racism
The beginning of March 2021 came, and it seemed like everyone was in some sort of funk.
“I’m tired”
“It’s just an off week”
“Work has been busy”
But I’d like to offer another perspective: we are grieving.
Last March is when everything changed. When people were sent home from work and school to flatten the curve, when healthcare workers put themselves on the line without proper protection to save lives, and we were told to distance from all we knew and loved. Everything was turned upside down, and in surviving the day-to-day with a virus we knew little about there was no room left for processing.
And somewhere in there it became normal. Or at least a kind of not-normal normal. We got used to only seeing half a person’s face, to ordering take out instead of dining in, to zooming for work and school at all hours. In the beginning it was scary, yes, but it felt like we could end it. Now life has take on a hint of dull grey as we enter the one year mark of when everything changed.
With the vaccine on the horizon and a glimmer of hope for this thing to end, it’s easy to rewrite the history of the past year. But I want to remember the last year as it was, in all of its fear and sorrow, so that we can move through it, not from it— because this grief is compounding and will be with us for a long time.
530,000 people have died from COVID to date, and thousands more have been directly impacted. One in three Americans have lost someone. Parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends have all touched by a virus that took loved ones. COVID-19 is disproportionally affecting people of color. Black people are experiencing racial trauma and injustice every day while simultaneously experiencing the highest death rate from COVID. Anti-Asian hate crimes rose by 150% in 2020 and the Navajo Nation surpassed New York state for the highest COVID-19 infection rate with little to no national coverage. During national shelter in place orders, extreme climate events led to the loss of homes, shelter, and safety; meanwhile, COVID-19 spread through prisons like wildfire.
We are not well. There’s still little to no financial or mental health support for those in need of it, drug use and suicidal ideation is on the rise, women have left the work force in record numbers, and most children are still not back in school. Grief is spread as wide as we are spread thin.
The scope of this issue of Death Dialogue is narrow. The stories and content collected represent only a small fraction of the the types of grief we experienced with the last year. The impact is seismic and we will feel the aftershock for years to come. This issue is also U.S.-centric when it comes to data, though several of our community submissions are from people across the world. Issue 01 of Death Dialogue focuses on our stories, where we were when COVID hit, photos that capture the year, what we’ve lost and gained, and points for reflection to move through an incredibly hard — and for some, traumatic — year.
IN THIS ISSUE:
WHERE WERE YOU ONE YEAR AGO?
People from around the country and world shared with us where they were when COVID hit, and when it became real.
INEQUALITY WITH COVID
To date, we’ve lost over 70,000 Black lives to COVID-19. We share some organizations working to support more Black doctors in the work force.
A YEAR OF HIGHS AND LOWS
People shared with us the things they lost and the things they gained in this year. What did you lose? What did you gain? Tell us yours.
one year later…
Where were you when COVID hit? When did it become real to you? We asked people to respond to this question - below are their answers. Submit your own here. We’ll be adding yours to this page throughout the week.
cw: death, suicide
I swung by my parents house…
on the way back to my place to check in on them before the quarantine. We stood back from each other, them in the doorway and me on the porch. I wanted to hug them, kiss them, stay with them. But I had heard we don’t know who had it or who didn’t, so I waved goodnight to them and told them I loved them.
— CHARLIE
I was in my screenwriting class…
and the girl next to me kept refreshing her computer to crazy headlines: the NBA was cancelled, Europe was “closed”, it felt completely surreal to see these unprecedented things happening.
—ALLIE
It became real when I went to the store…
and every one was panicked and the shelf were empty. Also the way some people reacted... I remember this man in the pasta section using is arm to swipe an entire shelf of pasta into is cart... it was insane.
— ANOUK
Laying in bed that night, holding each other…
that’s when it got really real. The next morning we just started driving...not knowing where we were headed, but knowing we couldn’t stay in a parking lot forever. As we drove, we saw the empty parking lots at malls and restaurants.
I cannot even begin to put into words the terror and dread I felt in that parking lot - or the fear of driving across the country looking for a place to “go home to”. Every stop, every gas station, every grocery store we had to stop at for supplies - we didn’t know anything about the virus except that it was here and it was killing people.
—KATE
I was going for a ski tour with a friend…
and on the drive she asked me if I was scared of it. I said, not really, because at the time I thought we would see it pass by, but she expressed being very scared and I reevaluated my concern. 4 days later I had my work computer buckled in the front seat of my car and was headed home for the foreseeable future.
— TORI
I was teaching…
I remember there were quite a few students who were bringing their own disinfectant to clean their desks. Panic was slowly creeping in around the staff. There were a few staff members who were out for a week with a really bad flu (they lost their taste). Then the announcement came and we packed up our stuff to teach online. It was a whirlwind.
— KENNETH
I was grocery shopping…
and suddenly everyone around me started moving faster and putting crazy amounts of food in their carts. We had all just received a stay at home order from the city on our cell phones. I hadn’t checked mine yet. It was the most eerie thing I’ve experienced in a long time.
— CLAIRE
I was on vacation…
with my parents after sponsoring an event in FL. News was that there was an issue in Washington. I had to fly back to NY the following week. When I got back a friend from Washington was in town. We met for dinner, I got a haircut and went to see a show in the city. My friend warned me not to get a lemon in my drink at the bar and we washed our hands for 20 seconds in the theater bathroom. My 101 year old grandmother in RI passed away the night of the show. COVID was also a concern in RI as a class trip to Italy resulted in students bringing COVID back to RI. I was terrified for my parents to fly home to RI for the funeral and since I had been in NYC I was terrified to be near any of my relatives for fear I could have been exposed and could get them sick. After the funeral I drove to MA stocked up on alcohol, cannabis and groceries and drove straight back to NJ. That was March 12th. I didn’t leave my apt again at all for weeks....
— STACEY
I was in a therapy session grieving my daughter’s suicide…
5 months earlier thinking, “maybe I’ll get COVID and can die” half joking half not. 5 days later I had COVID but instead of dying I was severely ill for weeks, multiple trips to the ER because I couldn’t breathe or walk. I’m still living with some long-term negative health effects and never dreamed the toll on lives this virus would take. The survivors and those who’ve died - all of us. Since getting sick in March of 2020 it became more and more real as people I knew began to die and watching my fellow RNs wage war like they’ve been on a battlefield trying to keep up with the casualties and grief and loneliness and helplessness. All while not being given adequate supplies, support, and a public calling it a hoax.
— TRACEY
It became real when I went to the store…
and every one was panicked and the shelf were empty. It was the weirdest feeling ever. Also the way some people reacted... I remember this man in the pasta section using is arm to swipe an entire shelf of pasta into is cart... it was insane.
— ANOUK
Heading home from Puerto Rico …
through JFK, where they had just reported a few more cases. The next day, it was deemed a pandemic and NBA was cancelled. It became so real so fast.
— BRITTANY
We got notice that school is canceled indefinitely.…
We were to switch to virtual lecture and our clinical rotations were cancelled, pushing our graduation date back 5 months.
At first I was excited to be free from the school that gave me so much suffering. And then it hit me. This is not good. This is not gunna be okay. It hit me while walking up the stairs once I got home. I started crying and sat down on the steps. I think I’ve been at least a little bit sad since that moment on the steps when I lost all hope.
— KATIE
It became very real when that young doctor killed herself in New York…
I still think about her.
— NANCY
We were at the hospital…
My Mom had been there for about a week after fighting pancreatic cancer for three years. My Dad and I were there all day and then I would go home at night and he stayed and slept on a tiny cot. He hadn’t been home to even shower in five days. The nurses said he might not be able to stay that night. The hospital wasn’t allowing visitors to stay overnight due to concerns of coronavirus and perhaps wouldn’t allow visitors at all soon. To think that we wouldn’t be able to visit my Mom anymore and that she would have to be in that hospital bed all alone all day and night was heartbreaking and terrifying. I was able to convince the nurses to let my Dad spent the night that night. Two days later, the day she came home to enter hospice they stopped allowing any visitors to the hospital.
— HUNTER
I went to San Francisco on a weekday and there was no traffic…
and literally nobody on the streets. I remember calling my partner about this because we were supposed to fly to Brazil the next day. We fought for an entire day on whether or not we should go, and decided to postpone our trip by a week. If things stayed the same (didn’t get worse), or got better, we’d go. And... lol. We did not go.
— PAULINA
I had just gone to whole foods…
and the clerk was like... Wtf is happening... I came home & my roommate was in full panic mode and I was too. It's so wild how long it's been since that day.
—MASON
Sitting in the truck…
having to make a decision to cancel my birthday get together with friends.
— STACY
I was living in Germany…
for my first job out of college as an English teacher on a competitive government scholarship. I remember the weather was just beginning to turn. The skies were blue and the trees were pink—my favorite season. On a warm evening in mid-March, I went to a friend’s house to cook dinner. We were chopping vegetables when we got the same NYT push notification: The State Department was issuing its strongest travel advisory and suspending our scholarship program immediately. I looked at my friends; one opened a bottle of wine while the other found the phone number of our program advisors in DC. After several panicked minutes on hold, we were told to leave Germany and fly home to the US as soon as possible because no one knew how much longer transatlantic travel would be possible. 48 hours later, I was on a flight home to California. I didn’t get to say goodbye to most of my friends; I didn’t get to say goodbye to any of my students or my colleagues at the school.
— JOSETTE
I had just come home from a rare date night…
with my husband, we had a sitter (in our home with our kids...snuggles and all) while we took public transit and bar hopped...anyway, when we got home my sister texted "looks like we're doing this". I had no idea how completely right she was and that a year later we'd miss babysitters, restaurants, public transit and so much more
I had flown to a tiny French island off of Australia…
to visit someone I loved despite not speaking French and knowing things were going down. Original trip 10 days. My flight had the first couple to the island with COVID. Shut down everything, all flights. Was seized in the middle of the night by officials who took me to an armed guard quarantine facility where they didn’t feed me food I could eat for 8 of my 14 days and didn’t have a translator. Came out traumatized and in full lockdown in a 10x10 studio with someone I had never lived with. Island ended up open internally because they effectively shut down in time. But I was stuck there until Oct 1. Even after said individual gaslit me, broke up with me, and fled the island to repatriate back to the US in July.
— JANA
Some of the first cases in the US…
were in and around the school district near Seattle where my dad works and I absolutely panicked. I was raising alarm bells first in many of my communities and I told all my friends to cancel all their plans and they thought I was crazy at first. My parents had been planning to visit me in Oakland from Seattle in April, and I remember exactly where I was, walking past grand lake theater, when I told her I was sure it would clear up in a few weeks. It was only a few days later I canceled their flights. Luckily they’re both doing okay and both getting their vaccines this month!
— MOLLIE
Deaths per 100,000 people by race or ethnicity through March 7, 2021. Image not drawn to statistical scale. Source: The COVID Tracking Project
73,462
That’s the number of Black lives we've lost to COVID-19 to date.
We cannot talk about the devastating effects of COVID-19 without naming and acknowledging the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, particularly the Black community. According to the COVID Tracking Project, Black people have died at 1.4 times the rate of white people nationwide.
Early in the pandemic, American Medical Foundation President Patrice A. Harris shared one of the reasons for why the Black community is at greater risk from COVID-19: because of “structural inequities and social determinants of health that are influenced by implicit bias and racial discrimination”. Additionally, only 5% of doctors in the US identify as Black, and too few non-Black doctors understand issues the Black community faces to account for whole-person care. We need more Black doctors. According to Dr. Kunmi Sobowale in an article for the Scientific American, “…we need more Black physicians because they are more likely to work in underserved communities and work on research topics relevant to the health of Black communities, and because Black patients have better outcomes when they see Black physicians.”
Below is a list of organizations working to support Black healthcare professionals in medical school and in the workforce. Please learn from them and support their work.
WHITE COATS BLACK DOCTORS FOUNDATION
530,000.
five hundred and thirty thousand.
five three zero zero zero zero.
it's the amount of people who died in 9/11 - times 179
it's more than 11 times the number of battle deaths of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam
imagine the whole population of Sacramento, CA - gone
it's the average times your heart will beat in the next 5 days
and the average amount of times your lungs will expand and contract over the three and a half weeks
it’s the number of stars you can see on a clear night - times 250
To the 530,000 — you are remembered.
WHAT PHOTO CAPTURES YOUR YEAR? MAYBE IT’S A PICTURES OF MASKS, SCRUBS, OR ZOOM CALLS. OR OF THE SMALL MOMENTS — A SUNSET, A FLOWER, A DAILY WALK. EMAIL US YOUR PHOTO THAT CAPTURES YOUR YEAR AND A SHORT CAPTION — WE’LL BE SHOWCASING THEM ON INSTAGRAM @DEATHDIALOGUE.
PLEASE EMAIL SUBMISSIONS TO
MORGAN@DEATHDIALOGUE.COM
the line is open.
Conversations I Wish I Had is a phone line to talk to someone in your life who is no longer around. Whether you’ve lost someone to COVID-19, lost someone in this strange, painful year to something else, or just want to talk generally to the 530,000 people who have died, the phone line is now open.
what did you lose?
what did you gain?
We asked people to submit their responses to what they lost this year and what they gained. Have one of your own? Submit it here.
So where do we
go from here?
Grief is an individual experience, even when felt collectively. It’s isolating, especially in a pandemic where we can’t gather and we’re all tired of zoom. It’s felt like a lost year — and a year without hugs.
We asked people how they’re coping. Some said their daily walks and meditation keep them sane, others said they hide in the bathroom from their kids, and many of you said you’ve become a friend of CBD.
There is light at the end of this tunnel.
Hard to believe, right? Most days it doesn’t feel like it, because it’s hard to process grief and trauma when you are surviving through it. On top of that, our society doesn’t place a huge value on acknowledging emotions — we often meet ourselves and others with a “get up and move on” attitude, when we should be met instead with care and understanding.
As we move towards more people being vaccinated and a glimmer of hope for the pandemic to end, it’s important to acknowledge our experience of the past year and be thinking of ways to support ourselves in our grief.
When you have bandwidth, I invite you to be intentional in thinking ahead, about how you want to exist in a post-COVID society, how you’ll continue to support your mental and physical health, and support others -- if capable -- in theirs. And on the days that seem so dark, remind yourself: you are resilient, and this too will end.
a heartfelt
thank you
From day one, healthcare workers and staff were on the frontlines of COVID-19. Not just doctors and nurses, but the staff who cleaned rooms, the kitchen staff who cooked meals, and countless others who make a hospital run. Lost on the Frontline by the Guardian is working to honor healthcare workers who have died from COVID-19, either from direct infection or suicide in the face of extreme loss and trauma. Please spend some time with this site to honor the healthcare workers and staff who from day one have shown up to work ready to care for their patients.
And if you know a healthcare worker or staff member, consider buying them coffee this week. They’re still showing up to the hospital every day,
saving lives.
Thank you to all of the healthcare workers
and hospital staff for the work you do.
