Lives Lost: Victims of the virus, remembered for tomorrow

Across the world, the devastation caused by the coronavirus is told in the voices of those left behind.

In England, the brother of Amged El-Hawrani, a Sudanese immigrant who became a successful doctor, says a rock of the family has been lost. “We would all lean on him very heavily.”

In the United States, the son of Isaiah Kuperstein says although his dad studied one of humanity’s darkest chapters, the Holocaust, he was a light to those around him. “Every picture that I see now makes me sad, but I see this twinkle in his eyes.”

In Brazil, family worry about the future of baby Alice, whose mother, 28-year-old Rafaela de Jesus Silva, died a week after giving birth. “My heart is broken,” said Rafaela’s aunt. “Her child will never even sit on her lap.”

Many countries have stories like these. They are about lives well lived or cut short, of love, of perseverance, of heartache, of dancing, of laughing and being silly, of sacrifice and bucket lists, and for loved ones left behind, being forced to contemplate a starkly different future after life was upended by an enemy the eye can’t see.

These are some of the stories that Associated Press journalists around the world are working to capture in an ongoing series called “Lives Lost." Each story is told individually, often with audio remembrances and photos from family members, and presented as a collection in this website.

They are the stories of ordinary people who have sometimes done extraordinary things, such as Joanne Mellady, who after a double lung transplant in her 50s began hang gliding, skiing, skateboarding and traveling the world. Or Arie Even, a native of Hungary who survived the Holocaust after his father was sent to a concentration camp, eventually building a successful life and family in...