a mother, a grandparent. covid basically destroyed our collective connection to entire generations. one patient... who came down with covid-19 after her husband came down with covid-19. and her daughter said to me, "you have to save my mother. we have had eight members of my family die from covid already." "we can't lose her, too." fortunately, we were able to save her. but that gives you a little picture of how quickly it went through families, and actually destroyed some families. [dr. smith] when we would decide to intubate someone, we knew that might be the last opportunity they would ever have to speak to their family. there's one patient i remember, he called his son. and he said it in spanish, but he said, like, "they're putting me to sleep.