@Discombobulated - Thanks. Yes, it is terrible news. I am still kind of shocked about it. I saw a message from M, the mutual friend and was happy to that she had gotten in touch. We had a conversation a little while back because her fiancé had completed his thesis and was thinking about coming here to teach at a university when the pandemic is over. She wanted to see what I thought. Anyways, I expected it was something to do with that. I never anticipated what the message actually contained.

I read that here about 1200 children have lost both parents to Covid, which is just heartbreaking.