In Alaska Native villages and across communities of color, the enduring silence of grief [washingtonpost.com]

By Akilah Johnson, The Washington Post, November 4, 2021

Sickness and death were familiar companions of Thecla Xavier long before the arrival of the coronavirus in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Her mother had 12 children. Except for her, each got sick and died — two before age 25, and one at 33 — and now, the 64-year-old is the only one alive. Pneumonia tried to take her son, Joe Xavier, when he was a baby, leaving the infant deprived of oxygen and in and out of hospitals until he was about 3. But years later, it was covid-19 that would ultimately claim him.

“Those elders, a long time ago used to say, ‘The world’s going to change. It is changing. Listen to the world when sickness, any kind of sickness, comes around,’” Thecla Xavier said. “I didn’t notice that until one morning last year I went out, and not a sound. No crows. No seagulls. No little birds. No dogs barking. Nothing.”

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