Mothers and fathers. Grandpas and grandmas. Teachers and bus drivers, choir soloists, and boiler room engineers, dental assistants and plumbers.

The people who have succumbed to COVID-19 have come from all corners of the community. Over the course of a year, the pandemic has taken nearly 500 lives in the Spokane region and almost 250 in North Idaho. Nationwide, well over 400,000 have perished, and the global toll is more than 2 million.

The numbers are numbingly impersonal. But every passing leaves an irreplaceable void in a family, a neighborhood, a workplace, a community. In the words of one Spokane woman who lost her father-in-law: “COVID steals people.”

Today, we remember some of those people, and the lives they led.