This has been a tough month for many people, myself included. Last week, Charlie, my friend of 23 years passed from a battle with cancer. This past weekend, I learned that my friend Jane passed away.
Jane has known me since I was born, and that's because she was my mom's best friend. Jane was 93 when she passed on Friday, April 10. She was living in a nursing home in Massachusetts, and contracted the COVID19 virus.
I have 50 plus years of wonderful memories of my mom's time spent with Jane, and the many conversations they had. Jane always made everyone smile. She has a beautiful family or grown children, and grandchildren. Jane's husband Phillip passed in 2004, and I also remember him fondly.
Often, when I was in my teens and 20s and lived at home with my parents, if Jane called, I would always talk with her for a little while before I called my mom to the phone. Jane always made you feel cared for, and she left that impression on me even as a kid. As I grew older, I would mail her my paper newsletters, and finally emailed her my daily blogs.
When my dad passed in 2008, Jane, wheelchair bound then, made it a point to be at the services for my mom and our family. My mom used to drive to visit Jane and would tell me of their great conversations.
Jane's calm demeanor, and patience beyond the understanding of any human would often calm my (emotional) mother down. Only Jane had that ability. I sometimes talked with Jane on the phone about my mom's crazy behavior when dementia had began to affect my mother. Jane was a calming voice.
It's hard to write this without having tears in my eyes. I've known Jane my entire life.She was like an aunt to me, and always offered a calm voice. I can hear her voice in my head and see her smile. I'll hold on to that for the rest of my life. Although she was my mother's best friend, Jane was also MY friend and I love her, too.
I'll miss you in the physical world, Jane, and I thank you for everything you've ever done for my mom, my family and for me. You are a light for all of humanity and continue to shine from the other side.
NEXT: Jane Gave me an Incredible Sign from the Other side
Pastor Landon Spradlin wasn't worried about coronavirus when he went to New Orleans to preach during Mardi Gras. A month later he was dead.
"He loved to laugh. He loved to play guitar. He played guitar even when he wasn't supposed to," says Jesse Spradlin of her father, Landon.
"He was just the best man in the world."
One day when this is all over, the wife and five children of Pastor Landon Spradlin hope to hold a large celebratory memorial for him.
For now they have had to make do with a funeral at which there were just a handful in attendance, including the blues guitarist who played at the graveside.
A little over a month ago, Pastor Spradlin, who was 66, drove with his wife Jean the 900 miles (1500 km) from their home in Virginia to Louisiana for Mardi Gras.
He viewed the festivities as an opportunity, through music, to save the souls of some of the hundreds of thousands of people that would attend.
He was joined by two of his daughters who came over from Texas.
"His mission was to go into pubs, clubs and bars, play the blues and connect with musicians and just tell them that Jesus loved them," says Jesse Spradlin, 28.
"Mardi Gras is like Times Square in New York during New Year's Eve. It's a sea of people just drinking and partying," she says. "He was loud and laughing and in his element."
Over recent years Pastor Spradlin had realised a dream of using the preaching he had honed in churches across three states and taking it to the streets through the medium he loved.
He had been playing instruments since the age of four and in 2016 was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, but it was religion that he felt had saved him from alcoholism and drug addiction in his twenties.
Those dark years are why he now had a particular affinity for those who felt down and out, something he could relate to.
At Mardi Gras, the family band played in New Orleans' busy Jackson Square, unaware of the threat they faced.
"I don't even remember us talking about the virus," says Naomi Spradlin, 26. "With what's happened we keep looking back, and we didn't talk about it once."
They were not the only ones. Even though it had been more than a month since the first coronavirus case in the US, Mardi Gras went on as planned.
Officials in the city now blame government inaction for what appears to have been a large spike in cases that followed.
Pastor Spradlin was one of those who became ill, but tested negative for Covid-19. Even as he was sick, he posted on social media about "hysteria" surrounding the virus.
On the 13th of March Pastor Spradlin shared on Facebook a misleading post comparing swine flu and coronavirus deaths.
It suggested that Barack Obama and Donald Trump respectively had been treated very differently by the media and that it was a politically motivated ploy to harm President Trump.
Earlier the very same day, the president himself had insinuated something very similar at a news conference.
Pastor Spradlin's son, Landon Isaac, 32, told me that he and his father had talked and agreed about what they felt was an irrational frenzy and fear mongering about the virus, perhaps because it was an election year.
"I want to say outright though, dad didn't think it was a hoax, he knew it was a real virus," says Landon Isaac.
"But he did put up that post because he was frustrated that the media was propagating fear as the main mode of communication," he told me.
By mid-March though, Pastor Spradlin's health suddenly took a turn for the worse. He and his wife decided to make the long drive back from New Orleans to their home in Virginia.
"I spoke to him five minutes before he collapsed in North Carolina," says Landon Isaac.
"I could tell his breathing was getting bad. And I just said that you've got to get home. But he didn't make it."
Pastor Spradlin was taken to hospital in North Carolina where they discovered he had developed pneumonia in both lungs and he now also tested positive for the coronavirus.
After eight days in intensive care, Pastor Spradlin died.
"It's a lot like Dad was our support column and somebody kicked out that support column. It feels like the roof is falling down on all of our heads right now," says Landon Isaac.
For days, he and his four siblings had to communicate with their mother through the glass door of her home. The funeral that has just taken place happened the day after Jean Spradlin's quarantine finally ended.
"We just never thought our father would pass away because of this. But he wasn't the type of person to just live in fear and let it rob him of the joy of the life that he had," says Jesse Spradlin.