Coronavirus put Emma’s grieving on hold. Now the memories are flooding back – ABC News

Emma Russack thinks back to those first few weeks of virus lockdown and isolation the first few weeks without a dear friend.
“No-one was seeing anyone, so it was normal not to see Jim. It was as if he was still around, but you just couldn’t see him,” she says.
“Now that it has all gone back to normal, that’s when you do feel the weight of that loss.
“And I really feel it now. I’m really feeling it.”
For months the pandemic has disrupted how we grieve for loved ones. As restrictions are lifted, people are reflecting on how that pain has been felt, and what more can be done to help.
Jim was Emma’s best friend. The kind of friend where you get to know their parents. The kind of friend who inspires.
“He had a very promising career ahead of him as a criminal barrister. For a 34-year-old he was really very good at what he did,” Emma says.
“Getting to know him I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to be more like Jim, I want to do that.'”
So Emma, a singer-songwriter, took up law.
Jim was also the kind of friend who becomes something more.
Towards the end of last year the pair started dating and moved in together in Melbourne. But it didn’t work out.
“It was very hard for both of us, but particularly hard for him. I’d never really broken anyone’s heart like that before and I felt very guilty,” Emma says.
Despite that pain, they’d started to try to get their friendship back. They were talking more.
“I was devastated to think that the fact that we’d tried a relationship out for two months was going to potentially ruin that

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