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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.

Late December and early January are weeks of trying to comfort our best friends, D and V, as D's beloved father, H, is hospitalized with COVID. Food, flowers, wine, puzzles, more food - left on the porch with a quick knock and a wave through the window. How can we not be inside with you, cuddled on the couch and processing and reminiscing as this all transpires? January 15. H is gone. COVID ravaged his lungs. Hospitalized since before Christmas, he could not survive outside of a hospital. This fit, healthy, 69 year old man now gone. Of all our parents, the least likely victim. Funeral on January 23 consists of watching the private family mass from our phones while in the procession line that will afterward go to the cemetery for the burial. It's a very cold day, indeed. G comes up from CT for the funeral. His car breaks down somewhere in Massachusetts and he takes an Uber the rest of the way. His own father is here in rehab but has recovered from a cardiac issue and is about to be discharged home. G can't believe that it is H we are burying and not his own father, who is 20 years older and hasn't been well for some time. G asks after my father. Shakes his head. The night before, on January 22, my father was rushed to the hospital by EMT, after his home health aide found him on the floor and unable to lift himself up. Hospitalized, 800 miles away, with symptoms of COVID. Rapid test in hospital says no, but fever, low oxygen, exhaustion are his symptoms so we don't believe it. Particularly given H tested negative twice in the week before he was hospitalized...and now he's gone. Monday, January 25. My husband receives a call from G, who has returned to CT. His father was in deed discharged to home that morning, and G spoke with him hearing how absolutely thrilled he was to be home. Hours later G received a call from a neighbor who had gone to check in on him. Dead. Watching TV. January 31. Remote funeral #2. My husband's two best friends have lost their fathers within a week of each other, and his beloved father-in-law is very ill. And we can't be together during any of it. We can be present, but not really together. I hope like hell that we do not accommodate to this way of grieving. "Together" alone.