Songs of Remembrance
By Wynne Davis, Jacob Ganz, Desiree F. Hicks, Gerry Holmes, Alyson Hurt, Connie Hanzhang Jin, Caroline Kelly, Koko Nakajima, Tien Le, Daoud Tyler-Ameen
Wednesday, May 18, 2022 • 5:00 AM EDT
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Two years later, nearly a million Americans have died from the disease. To put a face on this number and pay respect to the departed, NPR asked our audience to share songs that reminded them of a loved one lost to COVID-19. What follows are individual stories of those who have passed, those mourning them and the songs that continue to unite them.