The unseen debt of the pandemic
Some images stick in the mind as unreal and incandescent things, despite their lived experience. My mind holds onto the gray-haired woman, stooped from age and wearing the hospital-issue facemask, standing alone with her hands clasped tightly behind her back. She was peering through the window of the door to her husband’s ICU room where he had just died. I joined a small group of nurses to hold a distant …