As a pandemic presses on, waves of grief follow its path
In a strong voice tinged with her Irish homeland, Fiona Prine talks hauntingly about loss. From her COVID-19 infection and isolation — self-imposed in hopes of sparing her husband, folk-country legend John Pr in e—to his own devastating illness and death, she's had more than her share in this year like no other.
Illness and death are the pan de mic' s most feared consequences, but a collective sense of loss is perhaps its most pervasive. Around the world, the pandemic has spread grief by degrees.
While less than 1% of the global population is known to have been infected, few on Earth have been spared some form of loss since the corona virus took hold. With nearly 1 million deaths worldwide, fullblown bereavement is the most recognizable.
But even smaller losses can leave people feeling empty and unsettled.
Layoffs. Canceled visits with Grandpa. Shuttered restaurants. Closed gyms. These are losses that don't fit neatly into a “Hallmark category.” But they are not insignificant— especially when anxiety is already heightened, says psychologist and grief specialist Robert Neimeyer of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.
Activities that are part of usual routines, that bring pleasure or purpose, give people a sense of control over their lives. Losing them can result in psychological distress and unease, he says.
In normal times, people look to families, friends, communities for support in coping with loss. But in the pandemic, “We don't have as much capacity as a human community to meet the needs. Nearly everyone has been affected,” he says.
“If you were to approach anyone on the street and ask them 10 times, `What have you lost?', you would hear some remarkable stories.”
By the time John and Fiona Prine returned home from a trip to Ireland in late February, the pandemic was spreading. Soon after, Prine had hip replacement surgery, and they hunkered down in their Nashville home for his recovery.
They' d been careful overseas and came home feeling healthy but cautious. Corona virus tests were almost an afterthought.
“We were doing fine.
Happy to be home. John was already up on his feet with a cane,” Fiona Prine says.
Prine was 73, a cancer survivor with chronic lung disease, but still performing regularly. His wife and manager, 15 years younger, was protective. She often watched from backstage.
“I knew this would not be a safe virus for John,” she says.
When the call came with results showing she'd tested positive ,“You might as well have told me I was pregnant,” Fiona Prine says. Hoping to keep her husband healthy, “I literally bolted for the bedroom and locked myself in practically.”
His t est results were “indeterminate.” But he seemed OK.
Her quarantine was tough on both of them. They missed each other, and Face Timed every evening. “He didn't like to be away from me,” she says. Both news junkies, they followed pandemic developments.
“God, there are so many things I wish were different,” she said in a selfie video while confined to that bedroom as cases mounted worldwide, musicians canceled gigs, businesses shut down and families lost livelihoods.
At her quarantine' s end on Day 10, she zipped down the stairs, in gloves and mask, to be by Prine's side. He'd been napping more than usual, and she knew he was not OK. She grabbed their pulse oximeter, a device that clips onto a finger to measure blood oxygen levels. It showed just 82%, — too low even for someone with chronic lung disease. In healthy people, 95% and up is normal.
“I immediately drove him to the ER,” she says. Leaving him at the door was agonizing; she knew instinctively that the virus had already attacked his lungs.
She saw him again almost two weeks later when a doctor called her to the hospital. The Prines spent his final 17 hours together.
Six months later, she's learning to cope. Grief counseling has helped. But there are random moments when “I'm just absolutely swept away by grief. And I've learned not to stifle it.”
John Prine fans, many who' ve followed him for half a century, feel like family to his wife. They've reached out to console each other on social media. Alone in her big house, she reads their messages and posts remembrances of her own.
It is, Fiona Prine says, “a way for me to stay connected to the world.”
In an impoverished mostly Black and rural Georgia county, no one knows the toll of pandemic losses better than Adrick Ingram, the coroner.
The number of COVID19 death sin Hancock County, 43 as of Oct. 11, is deceiving. With only 8,530 residents, that amounts to 5 deaths per 1,000 — the highest per-capita rate of any U.S. county.
“It has affected our community in a way that I consider tragic,” Ingram says.
It has affected Ingram, who is used to seeing grief up close and personal in his dual jobs, declaring cause of death and running a funeral home.
“I try my best to compartmentalize, to have empathy but also to find ways to relax my mind and distance myself from my work,” says Ingram, 44. “And I have to do that, because it would be way too much otherwise.”
It has been way too much in 2020.
One out of every four funerals has been a COVID19 death. Many are people he knew well. “You know their children and their wives,” he says. It makes compartmentalizing“a little bit harder.”
He has a wife and a 7-year-old son. They fear he'll bring the virus home.