Yea it was a mess

It wasn't going to be a great year, as Susan my wife (31 years) had run out of treatments for her colon cancer. We met thru pre 17th century music, and had been frequent concert goers, then they stopped. Her last live music was a clavichord recital. As a public health researcher, she was furious with the way the pandemic was being handled. She passed from her cancer at the end of May.

I learned that all the rituals we have for loss break down in an epidemic, as they all start with "gather everybody together". It will be more than a year after her passing before I can host a celebration of her life.

In some ways we were lucky, she elected at home hospice, and I was able to be with her, with the music she wanted playing, as she passed. No goodbye's by video conference as the hundreds of thousands had to settle for.