How Do We Grieve 300,000 Lives Lost?
By Will Stone
December 14, 2020
More than 300,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States.
It is the latest sign of a generational tragedy — one still unfolding in every corner of the country — that leaves in its wake an expanse of grief that cannot be captured in a string of statistics.
“The numbers do not reflect that these were people,” says Brian Walter, whose 80-year-old father, John, died from COVID-19. “Everyone lost was a father or a mother, they had kids, they had family, they left people behind.”
There is no analogue in recent U.S history to the scale of death brought on by the coronavirus, which now runs unchecked in countless towns, cities and states.