How do you begin to get your head around all those who have faced death from Covid-19?

As i start writing this intro to a new series, 2. 06 million people around the world have lost their lives to Covid-19, that we know of. In South Africa, the official number sits at 38 288.

Each death from Covid-19 represents a family and very likely a wider community of friends, colleagues and neighbours that number millions more when it comes to people affected by this deadly disease.

How do you go from writing birthday wishes one day to inviting people to share stories of having lost loved ones the next? This is the world we live in at the moment – trying to hold tragedy and celebration at the same time. Creating space for lament, mourning and grief, while still desperately seeking moments of happiness, accomplishment or success to continue to feed an ongoing sense of deeper joy that keeps us going when circumstances might dictate otherwise…

Losing someone to Covid-19

Asking people who have faced death from Covid-19 feels like a tough one. 

Last week we heard a number of stories from different people who have had Covid-19 and survived and got to hear about some of the lingering effects many of them are still struggling with months later, as well as hearing from Nicola who has had it twice.

A large hope for that series was to put some faces and stories to a disease that many still refuse to take seriously, in the hope that hearing person real-life stories might help us all develop greater compassion and empathy and even the hope that it might help some people to start taking it a little more [or a lot more!] seriously.

While this series hopes to do the same, i think there is an added hope that for those who do choose to tell their stories, this might be a space for them to lament and mourn, as well as to celebrate and remember, the person [or persons] they have lost.

i do have two stories in already, with one more on the way, but if you are someone who has lost someone to Covid-19 and sharing your story of loss feels like something you will be able to do, then please drop me a message at brettfish@hotmail.com and we can look at getting it on here.

The Hardest Time to Lose Someone

There is no good time to lose somebody that you love. But 2020 and now 2021 are proving to be a really terrible and awful time to have someone you know die. Especially when many have died alone, cut off from families and friends, leaving a deep sense of lack of closure and emptiness and despair.

If you don’t know someone who has died from Covid-19, then you know someone who has lost someone. It’s just too close now for that not to be the case. Let’s find ways of honouring and remembering those who lost their lives. And let’s create spaces for people to share their grief as well as their celebrations and memories of lives well lived.

The first of the stories i get to share here is from Carolyn Blunden who lost her father, Edward.

Next up we heard from Nicky Vigeland who has lost a number of people.

i hope this will be one space where people feel free to do just that. For the rest of us, let’s commit to taking the pandemic as seriously as we can. Let’s wear the masks, wash our hands, sanitise regularly and keep our bubbles as small as possible. Let’s make wise and loving choices that benefit the greater community. Let’s substitute humility and compassion for selfishness and greed.

Let’s do our best to be there for those who have lost and are living with the pain…