‘No going back to normal’: 43,000 US kids lost a parent to COVID

Thousands of American children are struggling with the emotional and financial toll of losing a parent to COVID-19 — and the long-term effects on their physical, mental and financial health.

Ebony James’s 20-year-old son sometimes sits in his car for hours after he parks inside the family’s garage. Her eight-year-old stopped sleeping in his own bed after his dad no longer sat with him reading the Bible until he fell asleep. Her 16-year-old daughter “completely shut down and just didn’t talk at all”. This is how they are processing the sudden death of their father, Terrence, 49, from COVID-19 in February. “Their reaction is a little bit different than mine. I notice that when I try to talk to them about their dad, they don’t want to talk. They just don’t, and that part hurts because sometimes I do,” James, 49, told Al Jazeera. “What do you do with that?”