As the U.S. reaches the grim milestone of one million lives lost to COVID-19, it should be time for a national reckoning with the grief and suffering that has transpired. And yet, for many Americans, the pandemic has become one more crisis on top of a mountain of other crises — in other words, largely forgotten. But for the family members left behind — some nine million Americans — every day is a painful reminder that their loved ones are no longer here. Kristin Urquiza is one of them. She lost her father Mark in May of 2020. “Our society is asking of us,” she says, “to shove the pandemic and all of its impacts and all of its outcomes under the rug.”
