COVID doesn’t care about politics, but politics made sure the damage would be uneven. My own sister went into the hospital this month. She was intubated. She didn’t come out.
We weren’t close growing up, but in adulthood we connected. We found ways to be siblings, even across years of distance and disagreement. She was MAGA. She saw the world through a lens I fought against. Still — she was my sister.
One niece’s grief said what words can’t: the daily support, the roof offered, the tears wiped, the love given.
Those things are real, even if the politics were poison to me.
COVID took her life, but lies and tribalism built the path. Every conspiracy that said “don’t mask,” every pundit that sneered at vaccines, every politician that winked at denial — they own this. Families don’t get do-overs. They get funerals.