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Grieving Covid Losses, Five Years Later
In April 2020, when Sara Rochon lost her oldest brother to Covid, her grief felt all-consuming.
From her home in Florida, Ms. Rochon was pained by thoughts of her brother’s last days, alone without his wife, children and siblings in his hospital room in Ohio. In those early, paralyzing weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Rochon could not attend his funeral, a gathering limited to only a handful of immediate family members who lived nearby.
“It was unbearable,” she said.
Five years later, Ms. Rochon still thinks of her brother, Joseph Hanna, nearly every day.
But her grief has changed shape. Now when Mr. Hanna pops into her head, she remembers his face cracking a grin, his shock of thick white hair, his six-foot-one figure striding into a room.
This grief led to changes in her own life. Ms. Rochon, a retired teacher, decided to move back to Ohio, to be closer to her family.
“I can think of him with a smile and not a tear,” she said. “My grief hasn’t gone away. It’s just different.”
More than 1.2 million Americans died in the coronavirus pandemic. For their grieving families, the fifth anniversary of the pandemic’s beginning is an aching reminder of what they have lost.
Rituals were upended. Families were robbed of the ability to care for their loved ones, which, under normal circumstances, can help ease their emotional pain. The deaths themselves were often endured from a distance, with nurses holding up iPads to allow the sick to say goodbye to their relatives and spouses. And afterward, families were left to congregate and remember their loved ones by Zoom.
“It was a perfect storm of all the bad things,” said Holly Prigerson, chair of diagnostics in radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine and a longtime researcher on grief.
Just as Covid continues to affect people who are older or have underlying health conditions, it also still has a hold on bereaved families, five years on.
In interviews, many people say they are still mired in anger and crushing grief, unable to forget the particular cruelty of the pandemic: that their spouses, relatives and close friends often died alone.
Some mourners have found light after darkness. Since the pandemic, they have grown closer with their families and friends, embraced their own lives with more vigor and purpose, or turned to music or writing as a way to stitch themselves back together.
Still others say they are occupying a middle ground of grief.
Mary Anna Ball, a graduate student who lost several close family friends to Covid in her home state of West Virginia, said that she felt as though she would never catch up with her own mourning.
“It still feels kind of incomplete,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like there is that closure on any of it.”
Cleaved in Two
In Ann Arbor, Mich., Lisa Murray is still grieving her mother-in-law, Sandy Gatti, who died from the virus in February 2021.
Ms. Murray is no stranger to loss. Her own mother died in hospice in 2023, but that passing came peacefully, with family present.
“Sandy’s death stands out to me,” she said. “It feels like the hole has not closed, the wound has not closed. There’s this sense of injustice. Her death was so unnecessary. She was so close to getting a vaccine.”
Joy Netanya Thompson, an editor at a tech company in La Verne, Calif., lost her father to Covid in the summer of 2020, and then her beloved grandmother six months afterward.
“It feels so unmooring to lose a parent,” Ms. Thompson said. “It really feels like a part of you has been erased from the earth. And that was very profound.”
But it was the way Ms. Thompson’s father died — the isolation after weeks in the hospital — that made her grief linger, years later. She felt that her life had been cleaved in two: Before Grief and After Grief.
When her grandfather died in hospice care in 2023, she immediately felt the stark contrast between how he and her father spent their final days.
“I got to say goodbye to him,” Ms. Thompson said of her grandfather. “I got to hold his hand a couple different times in the last couple weeks. I got to tell him everything I wanted to tell him. And then we got to have a big memorial service and celebrate him. So I got to see the difference when you get to do the normal rituals.”
Looking Back in Anger
Like many Covid mourners, Amy Morris, 52, is still fighting one powerful emotion: anger.
Ms. Morris, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., watched helplessly from afar in late 2020 as her mother, Ilene Craft Boger, 85, fell ill in her assisted living facility and was transferred to a hospital. Ms. Boger, an accomplished jazz pianist who dressed impeccably, died a month later.
“The manner of her death still fills me with such rage that it takes my breath away,” Ms. Morris said.
Brian Owens, an artistic director in the film industry, has lost two aunts, an uncle and a nephew because of Covid.
He still feels a mix of frustration and grief. Though Mr. Owens’s family was in the United States, he was living in Canada, where Covid restrictions were far more stringent.
“You went to the grocery store and that was about it,” he said. “So that comparison added a layer of anger to the whole thing for me. I feel like so many of those deaths were preventable and we just didn’t prevent them.”
Others who lost relatives to the virus said they were dogged by lingering guilt.
Arjun Jalan, who lives in Boston, thinks about his father, far away in India.
Mr. Jalan’s mother, known in the family as a phenomenal hostess and cook, died in 2021, leaving his father widowed. For a long time, Mr. Jalan could not bear to look at photos of his mother. His father urged him to keep moving forward, to not worry about him or his loneliness.
Writing Your Way Through It
Before the pandemic, Nicholas Montemarano’s identity was wrapped around his love of fiction. He read relentlessly, wrote novels and taught creative writing at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
But when his mother, Catherine, died of Covid in January 2021, Mr. Montemarano found himself turning to poetry instead. He wrote a memoir, an elegy to his mother, in verse.
I’m trying to make my bed and brush my teeth.I’m trying to remember her voicebefore her lungs quit. Song sparrows fly twigsto the flowerbed outside my window.This morning in overgrown grass under light rain,a butterfly alighted on my face.
He is one of many Covid mourners who have discovered more personal ways to resolve their grief.
For Kim Lowe, a filmmaker in Boston, that relief was found after the pandemic left a gaping hole in her sprawling family in Massachusetts.
Ms. Lowe’s mother died during the pandemic in 2021, though doctors could not determine the cause. Then all four of her mother’s siblings fell ill and died within the next two years, two from Covid and two from what Ms. Lowe called “collateral Covid” — when they could not easily see a doctor and saw their health falter as a result.
“It felt like an entire generation had been wiped out,” she said. “It was physical pain, it was mental pain, it was all-encompassing grief.”
Ms. Lowe has fought through much of her grief by leaning on her own generation, the cousins who live around the Boston area. Together, they have written down their family stories and history, including a beloved recipe for Portuguese soup — one that her mother’s generation kept only in their heads.
On the fifth anniversary of the pandemic, Ms. Lowe feels like a changed person.
“I felt as if I was given a gift of perspective and love and gratitude,” she said. “I make people feel so awkward because I’m always telling them how much I love them and appreciate them. I’m so much more loving and present.”
Gwendolyn W. Williams, who lives in Los Angeles, last saw two of her closest friends on Christmas Eve in 2019, when she made her usual 45-minute drive to their assisted living home for a visit.
Both friends contracted Covid and died — only eight days apart — when the virus swept through the facility in 2020.
Today, Ms. Williams said she moves through life a little differently. She was always devoted to her friends, some close enough to feel like family. But now even a passing thought can prompt her to call or text someone.
“I don’t let the moment pass me by,” Ms. Williams said. “You do what you can for people, you love when you can do it.”
Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.
During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.
The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.
Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.
Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.
The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.
“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.
The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.
During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.
Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.
CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM
Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26
Page 5 of 17
and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.
Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)
On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.
Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)
On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.
Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)
On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.
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James Hickman holds a photo montage of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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CHICAGO — A line of mourners streamed through a Chicago auditorium Thursday to pay final respects to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. as cross-country memorial services began in the city the late civil rights leader called home.
The protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate will lie in repose for two days at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition before events in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, where he was born.
Family members wiped away tears as the casket was brought into the stately brick building. Flowers lined the sidewalks where people waiting to enter watched a large screen playing video excerpts of Jackson’s notable speeches. Some raised their fists in solidarity.
The casket with the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives before a public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Inside, Jackson’s children, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Rev. Al Sharpton were among those who stood by the open casket to shake hands and hug those coming to view the body of Jackson, dressed in a suit and blue shirt and tie.
“The challenge for us is that we’ve got to make sure that all he lived for was not in vain,” Sharpton told reporters. “Dr. King’s dream and Jesse Jackson’s mission now falls on our shoulders. We’ve got to stand up and keep it going.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks as Jesse Jackson Jr. listens after the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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Jackson died last week at age 84 after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his mobility and ability to speak in his later years.
Remembrances have already poured in from around the globe, and several U.S. states, including Minnesota, Iowa and North Carolina, are flying flags at half-staff in his honor.
But perhaps nowhere has his death been felt as strongly as in the nation’s third-largest city, where Jackson lived for decades and raised his six children, including a son who is a congressman.
Bouquets have been left outside the family’s Tudor-style home on the city’s South Side for days. Public schools have offered condolences, and city trains have used digital screens to display Jackson’s portrait and his well-known mantra, “I am Somebody!”
People wait to enter the security checkpoint for the public visitation for the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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His causes, both in the United States and abroad, were countless: Advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues including voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.
“We honor him, and his hard-earned legacy as a freedom fighter, philosopher, and faithful shepherd of his family and community here in Chicago,” the mayor said in a statement.
Next week, Jackson will lie in honor at the South Carolina Statehouse, followed by public services. According to Rainbow PUSH’s agenda, Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to deliver remarks; however, the governor’s office said Thursday that his participation wasn’t yet confirmed. Jackson spent his childhood and started his activism in South Carolina.
Details on services in Washington have not yet been made public. However, he will not lie in honor at the United States Capitol rotunda after a request for the commemoration was denied by the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office.
The two weeks of events will wrap up next week with a large celebration of life gathering at a Chicago megachurch and finally, homegoing services at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Family members said the services will be open to all.
“Our family is overwhelmed and overjoyed by the amazing amount of support being offered by common, ordinary people who our father’s life has come into contact with,” his eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., said before the services began. “This is a unique opportunity to lay down some of the political rhetoric and to lay down some of the division that deeply divides our country and to reflect upon a man who brought people together.”
The family of the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives as Yusep Jackson wipes his eyes before public visitation at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago on Thursday.
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The services included prayers from some of the city’s most well-known religious leaders, including Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. Mourners of all ages — from toddlers in strollers to elderly people in wheelchairs — came to pay respects.
Video clips of his appearances at news conferences, the campaign trail and even “Sesame Street” also played inside the auditorium.
Claudette Redic, a retiree who lives in Chicago, said her family has respected Jackson, from backing his presidential ambitions to her son getting a scholarship from a program Jackson championed.
“We have generations of support,” she said. “I’m hoping we continue.”
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