By Tom Charlesworth
In the shadow of Parliament, on the opposite side of the Thames, sits a stark reminder for all MPs. 150,000 hand-painted hearts. One for each of those who’ve lost their life to COVID in the past year.
Standing at the memorial, it’s easy to let the sheer magnitude of loss sweep over you like a wave. To let each individual heart blend into the next.
‘You don’t have a spare Sharpie I could borrow, do you?’ I looked up from my camera to see a lady standing, tears falling into her homemade mask, clutching a dry marker pen. ‘I’ve come to put my husband’s name on the wall but picked up an old pen.’
Her pain broke me. Suddenly, each heart, each name, meant something.
Behind each of the 150,000 hearts was a grieving person, just like Sofia. She told me how her husband passed away three months ago, and that now she feels an ‘empty shell of who she once was.’
50 years of living with her husband was ruthlessly taken away from her in January. But now, after months of pain, Sofia has managed to find solace and comfort in the memorial.
‘We were unable to give John a proper send-off. But now, writing his name here and seeing other in a similar situation, I feel comforted. It’s allowed me to have closure,’ Sofia told me, as she pushed back the tears.
The group behind the tribute, COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, started painting the wall in March, as the ONS death figure crept towards 150,000. Now, they say the memorial is complete, although hearts will continue to be added as the death toll slowly rises.
They say that it hoped to bring closure and comfort to those grieving.
Lobby Akinnola, a spokesperson for the group, also stated that the group wish to reach out to the government to provide a helpful insight into the handling of the pandemic. Whilst No.10 have so far refused to meet, the group are hopeful that that decision changes.
“The pain of losing someone is devastating and we want to limit that as much as possible.”
(Lobby Akinnola)
The wall, which sits behind St. Thomas’ Hospital where Boris Johnson was taken for lifesaving treatment at the start of the pandemic, stretches for nearly half a kilometre and is two meters tall. A canvas that has been completely flooded with red hearts.
Whilst it started out as an informal memorial, there have been calls for the wall to become a permanent fixture in tribute to all of those who have lost their life.
Sarah, one volunteer painting the hearts, explained, ‘because we’re using paint, and the wall’s quite porous, we’d hope this will stay here for a while. But we’re actually looking to get a lacquer painted over the top in order to preserve the memorial.’
In a talk with Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, implored people to visit the tribute, saying, ‘you will be blown away by it. It is emotionally profound.’
Whilst many of the hearts are simply filled with red, most have been further personalised. Some mentioned a name, along with a date of death, others simply featured a carefully written ‘mum’ or ‘gran’.
But if the wall does anything, it’s really put into perspective our collective loss. It personalises the statistics that we’ve become so used to hearing about on the news. It puts faces to those who’ve died.
Sofia is one person. Her husband is one of 150,000 who have lost their life to COVID in the past year. Somehow, the wall has provided comfort and some closure to their families and friends.
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