It wasn’t yet noon and Magda Maldonado had already overseen her second funeral of the day.
The 58-year-old director at Continental Funeral Home in East L.A. had another service scheduled in four hours, but for a moment she sat down and closed her eyes. She thought about her grieving employees and how, in less than a week, four of them had lost loved ones to COVID-19.
“I don’t have words,” she said, holding back tears.
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Seven minutes from the funeral home, in a storefront with signs boasting specials for quinceañeras and weddings, Elizabeth Garibay arranged rose buds and baby’s breath into funeral bouquets at J&I Florist some of the only orders that haven’t dwindled during the pandemic.