“As a mom who is also the birthing person in our family, one of the biggest fears I always had was wondering whether our son was eating well or had enough sustenance. The number of hours I spent pumping or feeding him was astronomical and solitary in so many ways.”
“I feel the most guilt over my relationship with my nephew because I haven’t been as present for him,” she said. In June, those feelings intensified as she watched him graduate from high school in Alabama via YouTube from her TV. “I was crying because I’m not there and I should be.”
Amy Kugler joined a long line of people waiting to get their vaccines at an event center in Seattle. It was the first time in more than a year that she had been around so many people, even if they were physically distanced.
Ms. Kugler, a 39-year-old communications and content consultant, had thought she would be one of the last members of her family to be vaccinated.
It was the morning after Thanksgiving when her body finally gave out. The layers upon crushing layers of loss — her grandmother two days prior, her job at the start of the year — tethered her to her bed. As did all the little losses, the in-between bits this year where structure dissolved, order vanished and sanity waned.
Amy Kugler had reached the point where the answer to her husband’s question — are you OK? — came out as a resounding “no.”