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The Lives Lost: Portraits of North Carolinians We've Lost

The Lives Lost

The Lives Lost

On March 24, 2020, COVID-19 claimed its first recorded life in North Carolina. Since then, the pandemic has upended our communities, our families, and our lives in devastating ways. Around 12,000 North Carolinians have lost their lives in the year since. Covid deaths, we learned, are horrific and lonely and will take years to process – if ever. In the spirit of remembering the lives we've lost, we're telling eight life stories – a cross-section of our Carolina neighbors – that ended too soon due to COVID.
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Portraits of North Carolinians We've Lost
On Grief & This Series
  • illustration of people embracing and wearing face masks meant to symbolize grief in times of COVID-19
    Natalia Polanco
    /
    For WUNC
    Around 12,000 North Carolinians have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, leaving countless friends and families forced to adapt to honor their loved ones. From live-streamed funerals to in-person memorials with tight attendance, for many, the rituals that traditionally guide loved ones through the process of grief have been stripped away or put on hold.
  • Natalie Dudas-Thomas
    /
    WUNC
    On March 24, 2020, COVID-19 claimed its first recorded life in North Carolina. Since then, the pandemic has upended our communities, our families, and our lives in devastating ways. This series aims to tell the life stories of some of those we've lost too soon.
It is hard to make space for pausing, and recognizing what we have lost, who we lost, and having an opportunity to learn the lessons that come from that. We now may be entering a period where it's more possible for us to take that pause. And courageous leaders — whether they are in faith communities, communities of color, governmental agencies, in all walks of life — have an opportunity to lead and model rituals of remembrance, as well as rituals of renewal as we find a new way of moving forward in a world that is more unpredictable than we ever imagined it could be.
Robert A. Neimeyer, clinical psychologist and Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition

Credits

Reporters: Jason deBruyn, Cole del Charco, Celeste Gracia, Leoneda Inge, Jay Price, Liz Schlemmer
Digital Producers: Mitch Northam, Laura Pellicer
Social Media Producer: Natalie Dudas-Thomas
Illustrator: Natalia Polanco
Broadcast Editor: Dave DeWitt
Digital Editor: Elizabeth Baier
News Director: Brent Wolfe