{"id":24680,"date":"2025-03-09T22:25:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T22:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/belfast-concert-held-for-those-lost-during-the-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2025-03-09T22:25:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T22:25:50","slug":"belfast-concert-held-for-those-lost-during-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/belfast-concert-held-for-those-lost-during-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast concert held for those lost during the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Lyndsey Telford<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News NI reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hazel Gray lost both parents within just over a month of each other<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A County Fermanagh woman who lost both her parents to Covid-19, within just over a month of each other, has said “life stopped” when they died.<\/p>\n

Hazel Gray was among those who gathered for a memorial concert in Belfast to honour loved ones who died during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

It was part of a UK-wide day of reflection<\/a> to mark five years since the start of the outbreak of the virus.<\/p>\n

Ms Gray’s parents George and Violet Little died in December 2020 and January 2021 respectively, they were 80 and 78 years old.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“They disappeared. It’s the only way I can describe it,” Hazel Gray told BBC News NI.<\/p>\n

“They went to hospital and never came home. The only parts of them that came home were two bags of contaminated waste, which was an insult. It’s just heart breaking.”<\/p>\n

Ms Gray said she hasn’t “moved on” from her grief.<\/p>\n

“There’s no way of explaining it unless you’ve been through this,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s as if life stopped and slowly you’re just trying to regain the fact that this happened, and you do have to keep going.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Memory Stones of Love project features stones painted with images to reflect the lives of those lost<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Ms Gray, who is from just outside Enniskillen, said she takes inspiration from her mother.<\/p>\n

“My mum’s motto in life was, ‘sure what do you do?’ <\/p>\n

“You have to do whatever you can to keep going through life and not let anything get in your way of living,” she said.<\/p>\n

“She was disabled but she never let that stop her. So I take that as my inspiration.”<\/p>\n

Ms Gray said coming together with others who had lost loved ones during the pandemic brought some comfort – because they understood.<\/p>\n

She also praised the Memory Stones of Love project, which features stones painted with images to reflect the lives of those lost.<\/p>\n

“The memory stones – it’s so special – they just brought something back,” she said.<\/p>\n

“My parents are alive again because of a couple of stones. It’s just so special to see their names and their own little story.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Families laid out the stones during the concert<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Ms Gray described how her mother’s stone featured a ball of wool and knitting needles, because she loved to knit, as well as a blue tit, because she enjoyed watching the birds in her garden.<\/p>\n

Her father’s depicted the blue tractor he had on his farm and the motif of the silver band of which he was a member for most of his life.<\/p>\n

“That was the story that those two stones portrayed, which was a little snap shot of their life,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The memorial concert, which featured music from a choir as well as performances from solo singers, was organised by Memory Stones of Love group.<\/p>\n

Co-lead of the group Brenda Doherty, whose mother Ruth Burke died early in the pandemic, told BBC News NI that “hope” was one of the main themes of the day.<\/p>\n

She said bringing people together to remember their loved ones helped tackle the “stigma” of grief.<\/p>\n

She added that the group was continuing to campaign for a permanent memorial in Northern Ireland for those who lost their lives during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

“Our memory stones need a home, and they need somewhere – a positive and reflective space – where people can go and remember and honour their loved ones,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lyndsey Telford BBC News NI reporter BBC Hazel Gray lost both parents within just over a month of each other A County Fermanagh woman who lost both her parents to Covid-19, within just over a month of each other, has said “life stopped” when they died. Hazel Gray was among those who gathered for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[420,1867,2748,818,116],"class_list":["post-24680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-belfast","tag-concert","tag-held","tag-lost","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24682,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions\/24682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}