A club nobody 'wanted to join': How Covid widows are finding support through Facebook

A club nobody ‘wanted to join’: How Covid widows are finding support through Facebook "A lot of young women are losing their husbands to this, and they think they are alone," the group's founder said. "We need to come together and support each other, because Covid-19 is like a different type of death." NBC News

The last time Pamela Addison saw her husband alive, on April 3, she managed to mouth the words "I love you" to him before the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance.

Martin Addison, 44, a speech pathologist, couldn't respond. He had been struggling to breathe as he tried to recover from Covid-19 at home two weeks after having been exposed at the hospital where he conducted swallow evaluations on patients. As she held her 6-month-old son, Graeme, and her 2-year-old-daughter, Elsie, and watched the ambulance drive away, she still held on to hope that her husband, healthy and in his prime, would recover quickly. After all, the news reports at the time suggested that the victims of the pandemic were predominantly elderly or those with pre-existing conditions.

He died 26 days later. ..

Months later, Addison has found a way to share her grief and honor her husband's memory.

Having been inspired by a sympathy card she got from another widow, a stranger whose husband died under similar circumstances, Addison, a reading teacher, has set out to provide support for others like them. Addison founded a Facebook support group, Young Widows and Widowers of Covid-19, for others struggling as single parents in the isolation brought by the pandemic.

Less than two months after its launch on Nov. 7, the group has 84 members (and counting) from across the country, as well as from the United Kingdom.

It's a start: There are plans for eventual Zoom meetups and, once a vaccine is readily available, for in-person gatherings, as well.

"A lot of young women are losing their husbands to this, and they think they are alone," Addison said. "We need to come together and support each other, because Covid-19 is like a different type of death."  ...