Lives Lost: Families find solace in memories and mementos

Long after the funeral or memorial, if one was even possible, and long after the condolence cards, the phone calls of support, there is simply the emptiness. That’s when the memories rush in.

They can come from the feel of wearing a loved one’s necklace, its closeness trying to bridge an impossible distance. Or the embrace of the teddy bear made from their old flannel shirts, familiar and safe. Or the sight of a heron, a symbol of a family’s heritage, regal and proud.

The search for solace takes many forms. But when a global tragedy, a pandemic, disrupts that most delicate of life’s moments — a loved one’s passing — finding comfort also takes on new importance. A single life can become lost among many, seemingly blending into an ever-growing death toll.

Over the last year, Associated Press journalists profiled dozens of ordinary people around the world who died from the coronavirus, aiming to tell the story of COVID-19, one person at a time. As the turbulent year comes to a close, the AP revisited the families and friends of 10 of those lost to see how they are coping.

In their stories, windows into private grief amid a public calamity, they are finding comfort in the act of remembering, whether it’s in the cradling of an item their loved one left behind, in a vow to fulfill a promise they would’ve blessed — or in imagining them, their strength, in better days.

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The gray sandals Yurancy Castillo left in her family’s home in Venezuela sit next to her bed with a Tweety bird pillowcase.

Keeping the shoes there allows her mother to briefly trick herself into thinking that her spunky curly-haired daughter will return soon. But now, six months after her death at 30 from COVID-19, that grows harder to do.

“Life isn’t the same for me,” Mery...