Stolen by COVID: As Spokane passes 500 deaths, we look at a few of the lives lost to the pandemic

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 more than 500 lives in Spokane County 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.