Listen to our stories…

Click on the images to view stories of individual experiences with grief, connection, isolation, and courage.

The distance from my home on Staten Island to the parish I serve in Brooklyn is about 16 miles. Ten of those are on an expressway that is normally completely jammed with traffic, even at off-peak times. Pre-Covid, it was not unusual for the trip to take 90 minutes. During the months of strict lockdown, I made the trip once a week to go through the mail and prepare a deposit. The streets and highways were empty. As a New Yorker inured to traffic, it was an unsettling, not a welcome, experience. The lack of traffic increased the unease and fear of those days. About a month in, the City began to take advantage of the empty roads to do repairs. The first time I was caught in heavy traffic with lanes closed due to construction, I was relieved and delighted to encounter a more normal trip.

Father Jerry
Staten Island, NY
As charge nurse, you were the gatekeeper of PPE and deciding who got an N95. Doctors and nurses wanted them, but management said no N95s unless coding and intubating.

Laci, Emergency Department RN
Clackamas OR

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Like most others, I imagine, I lost two years of normal life. Closings, restrictions, interrupted services, and reduced visits with family took at toll that I felt especially acutely because I had just really settled into life as a retiree. That time will not be returned to me and now that things have kind of returned to normal I’m an older person than I was when the pandemic started. What I gained is an appreciation for many things I took for granted, like going to restaurants and visiting and the easy access to things that the supply chain provided before the disruptions.

Steve Keucher
Bloomington, IN
Like most others, I imagine, I lost two years of normal life. Closings, restrictions, interrupted services, and reduced visits with family took at toll that I felt especially acutely because I had just really settled into life as a retiree. That time will not be returned to me and now that things have kind of returned to normal I’m an older person than I was when the pandemic started. What I gained is an appreciation for many things I took for granted, like going to restaurants and visiting and the easy access to things that the supply chain provided before the disruptions.

Steve Keucher
Bloomington, IN