A family and world united by grief: COVID's continued, shattering impact | Kennerly

It's overwhelming, really, if you think about how many of us are affected by the loss of more than 1 million people to COVID in the United States.

If the person who died has even one person missing them, that's 1 million-plus people out there still figuring out which way is up amid a horrible mélange of grief, helplessness and in so many cases, anger.

And if you think about this on a global basis, with more than 6 million people dead, how many of us are out there wrapped in that suffocating blanket of loss?

Forget it. You do the math. I'm no good at that.

What I'm better at is telling stories. Sharing, as I call it, how we live — which includes how we die. How we fill those days, years, decades across a lifetime; how we meet and treat and one day mourn the people who nurture us, teach us, hold us on the best and worst of days.

And that's why I wanted to share just a snippet of our shared time to tell you about Judith Simonson and her daughter, Kristy Simonson Losapio — and COVID's toll on their family.

COVID's grim toll: One million deaths and counting, endless grief and lasting questions

I met Kristy, a local nurse practitioner, in 2021, after the death of her older sister. Kari.

Also a nurse practitioner, Kari refused to be vaccinated. She died of COVID, after being on a ventilator at a Brevard hospital, on Sept. 10, 2021. She was 50. She left a teenage daughter who's now living with Kristy and her family.

Sadly, Kristy and I talked again in mid-June, after the death of Kristy's dad, David "Dave" Simonson of Indialantic. He was 86. He, too, had COVID. Mercifully, it was a short illness.

This time, Kristy's mom Judith joined us.

They've lost so much, this mom and her middle child: Judith, her husband and her oldest daughter. Kristy, her father and her big sister. They and other members of their family, including Kristy's younger sister, Kim, are united in grief but struggling, as that united front, to move forward.

But June 16, the day we chatted, was a good day.

"I had my moments today but they didn't carry me away, you know?" Judith told me.

"I had some things to take care of, like my granddaughter had her wisdom teeth out. So I had to look after her. And I took my other granddaughter out to the mall and got her a shirt and shorts, things like that. And that really did help me to keep my mind on more positive things rather than the loss that I obviously feel so deeply."

She and Dave, longtime Indialantic residents, had done all the right things, she said. Had their shots. Wore masks, and were in the process of scheduling a second booster.

But Dave, who'd never been sick "until he hit about 82," his wife said, had COPD.

First, Judith contracted the coronavirus.

A couple of days later, Dave had it.

Surrounded by family, he died June 3.

But oh, how Dave lived.

From 1961 to 2004, Dave was employed by Raytheon and served NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo manned space programs and the shuttle program. In 1980, he joined the Shuttle Support Group and remained there until his retirement in 2004, ending his remarkable 43-year career as Operations Control Engineer at CSR.

His family is rightfully proud of his accomplishments — but it's Dave the husband, dad and "Pop-Pop" they're missing most.

It's the Dave who met Judy, a native Canadian, in Antigua, got engaged to her 10 days later and married her in 1969, four months after they met.

Nights are hard for Judith. After 53 years with Dave, how could they not be?

"At night, just before I go to bed, I start to slide," she said.

"But having family around and having them call me and say, 'How are you, Mom?' ... and then my grandkids came last night with their boyfriends — it really does lift your spirits. My daughter Kim, she was with me all the time, too. But I'm still on the edge at times. And I will be, for a long time."

For Kristy, Dave was the devoted dad who in his later years strolled down the street with his grandchildren, leading neighbors to comment about Pop-Pop walking his "ducklings" to school.

"I am so lucky to have been raised by a dad like that," she said. "My dad was a whole different breed ... like a unicorn."

Just days after her dad's death, Kristy took her own family on a planned vacation. Her mother insisted. Dave would want that, Judith said.

'It's so damn sad," Kristy said. "But my niece, Mia, is coming out on the tail end of this horrible thing with her mom. And I wanted her to have a good time; some happy memories ... we all need that."

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That's the part of the COVID story they're living now: the aftermath, and what we've learned since early 2020.

That COVID deaths, all of them, affect us in ways we can't fathom until we're watching someone gasp for breath, or planning a funeral. That your chances of surviving COVID if you've been vaccinated are a hell of a lot better than if you aren't. That telling people who have been vaccinated but get COVID that the jab is useless? Well, tell that to those who've had it and lived — like Judith and Kristy — and see what they tell you.

The man who lived a big, happy, productive life would tell anyone who's not been vaccinated to do it, his wife and daughter agree.

"He always said, 'You have to care,'" Judith said.

"And by caring, by getting this shot, you are caring about not only yourself, but everybody around you."

Contact Kennerly at bkennerly@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @bybrittkennerly Facebook: /bybrittkennerly. Local journalism like this needs your support. Consider subscribing to your local newspaper. See our current offers.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: A family and world united by grief: COVID's horrid death toll