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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

This past Sunday morning was the 8th and final day of Passover. Traditional Jews attend synagogue on this morning, in part because they want to recite Yizkor, the brief prayer service said in memory and honor of the departed. I have good friends, a couple, who always attend synagogue on these days because it is important to them to say Yizkor. Since Covid shut down our synagogue over a year ago, they have organized a small minyan on their front lawn for a prayer service. One of my friend's lost his father a few months before Covid hit, and my mother had passed away a few months before that. Knowing that I was still in mourning for my mom when Covid descended, they have always asked my husband and me if we want to join them, become part of the minyan (a group of 10) for the Yizkor service on their lawn. If it wasn't for Covid, lockdowns, and social distancing, this new and meaningful home grown prayer service would have never come into being. There we are: ten to twelve middle age adults on a front lawn in a suburban cul-de-sac at 8:30 on a quiet morning with the birds chirping and the dew wetting our sneakers. We are all masked and stand with our partners, or alone, in a large circle. My friend leads the prayer service and she calls on some of us to lead responsive prayers. Without the background noise of a crowded sanctuary, I think about the English words, and listen to the rhythm of the Hebrew. I think about my mom, but more about the losses we have all endured in this past year. It isn't just the people who died due to Covid and its complications, but others who had to die alone because of covid restrictions that kept loved ones from their sides. The losses we felt when we couldn't grieve properly or mourn together. Our synagogue is making plans for a gradual re-opening; it is already welcoming small numbers of people back for services. By the time Yom Kippur arrives in the fall, we may not need to assemble on a friend's lawn. But I will always remember that during this year of lockdown, we found a way to create a holy space, a communal space, that was both safe and comforting.