“COVID has definitely made itself known,” said Dale Groce, the funeral home’s director. North Carolina passed a dark threshold Tuesday: reporting more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. More than 40% of these deaths have come in the past two months ago. With their intimate vantage points on death and grief, funeral home staff have witnessed the toll of this significant human loss. “It’s just been terrible walking people through this,” said David Breece of Rogers and Breece Funeral Home in Fayetteville. He lamented the many families who haven’t been able to say goodbye to loved ones in-person due to health restrictions. He recalled a husband hospitalized with COVID-19 who had to watch his wife’s funeral service through an iPad. She also was a victim of the virus.