“I could still be in shock, really. I think I’ve been numb and just feeling lost. Trying to figure out how to move on…. I’m just kind of floating... like I’m out of myself and just kind of watching myself go through life.”

— Sokonie Reed, Lost her mother to COVID-19, Peoria, IL

“You can look at any society and judge it by how they take care of their dead.... That’s a huge thing about not only the African American community but America as well because we’re a huge part of the fabric of America. ”

— Cynthia Gilkeson, Co-Funeral Director, Simon's Mortuary

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“There were deliberate decisions made to not safeguard the lives of so many people.... There were treatments that might have been helpful in helping my father recover. But there was such a shortage and we were literally picking and choosing whose lives were worthy of protection and whose weren’t.”

— Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Lost her father to COVID-19, Minneapolis, MN

Screen Shot 2021-05-07 at 3.39.20 PM.png — The Claytons

“There’s people all over the world and all over the country that didn’t get to be with their loved ones and didn’t get that closure that they truly needed to get past this. You know, like in nursing, we learned that there were 12 stages of death. You know, the last being acceptance. And I just I can’t seem to get I’m stuck on the anger. You know, of why did this have to happen to him? And that he’s never hurt anybody.”

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Screen Shot 2021-05-07 at 4.07.55 PM.png — Frida Harris-Hobbs

“She passed at like 12:40, 12:39, something like that. Which was exactly 11 hours and 42 minutes after he passed... We had their funeral together.”

“My focus will be not on the end of life, but as we say, that ‘dash’... to be really focused on the dash of life where there is an abundance of what will sustain me for the remainder of my life.”

— Theresa Neal, lost cousin to covid-19, Minneapolis, MN