Editorial Reflections on a COVID death: Naming a family’s pain and reparation Ann Gallagher University of Exeter, UK My father died of complications of COVID-19 infection on 8th December 2020. He was hospitalised following a fall, as it was assumed he had experienced ‘a stroke’ (or cerebrovascular accident). A day later, the family received bad news that he was ‘COVID positive’. Then began an emotional rollercoaster of progress and deterioration, a rollercoaster lasting 45 days and nights. Days and nights when the family was unable to visit or communicate adequately with our father or the hospital team. Days and nights when we feared he felt abandoned and alone. Days and nights when, like so many other families around the world, we were unable to do what families should do when a loved one is ill: to show love and care, to comfort by being present and to provide support in discussions regarding treatment and care options. Some 25 years ago, Paul Lauritzen cited writing by Ursula Le Guin: ‘Offer your experience as your truth’. 1 Lauritzen pointed to a trend, at that time, for writers to call for ‘the integration of reason and emotion, the personal and the political, the public and the private’ and ‘to reverse the segregation of intellectual inquiry from personal experience in moral deliberation’. Lauritzen discusses good reasons why we need to be wary of assertions of the authority of experience. However, he writes that appeals to experience involve storytelling, invite people to a conversation and signal ‘the beginning not the end of moral deliberation’. 1 These thoughts resonated with me as I drafted this editorial. Our family story was captured by communication through a WhatsApp group – communication which detailed the highs and lows of my father’s hospitalisation. A nominated family member devoted much time, during those 45 days, attempting to reach hospital team members responsible for our father’s care to share with all of us. When the hospital team was reached, there was great variation in the quality and consistency of information received and it was difficult to interpret this. As our father was not comfortable with communication technologies, we had to trust the busy hospital team to pass on our messages. We sent also ‘get well’ cards and family photos, hoping these would get through. Poor substitutes for being with a suffering loved one. Being aware of the pressure on care services, we knew that our father was one of many needing the attention of nurses, doctors and other professionals. We also knew that we could not do what families should do when a loved one is ill, suffering and dying. We were unable to visit, to spend time with our family member supporting and comforting and getting to know – and trust – the hospital team. We felt helpless and powerless in being unable to do what we knew we should do in normal times. However, these are not normal times, and family love and filial piety are trumped by a pandemic ethics characterised by utilitarianism. That is, family values of respect and love for older adults are challenged by a pandemic ethics which balanced benefits and harms aiming for ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. Corresponding author: Ann Gallagher, Academy of Nursing, University of Exeter, South Cloisters, Heavitree Road EX1 2LU, Exeter, UK. Email: a.m.gallagher@exeter.ac.uk Nursing Ethics 2021, Vol. 28(5) 587–589 ª The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions 10.1177/09697330211038795 journals.sagepub.com/home/nej