The coronavirus death toll tops 100,000 in America. My father is one of them.

My father, Neil Krieger, died four weeks ago from COVID-19 complications.

Yet, even with those words typed out on the page, even with having placed dirt on top of his coffin, even with having helped my mother retrieve his wedding ring from the hospital, I can’t quite believe it.

They say that every loved one’s death comes as a shock, no matter how or when they die.

But I can’t help but think that my dad’s death is different, that it’s harder to accept for having come at the end of a series of missteps and incompetence on the part of those very individuals charged with protecting vulnerable people like him.

Even with those words typed out on the page, even with having placed dirt on top of his coffin, even with having helped my mother retrieve his wedding ring from the hospital, I can’t quite believe it.

My father — who at 78 was not fearful of death and never tried to fight his mortality, instead reading books on the end of life and inviting my brother and me to discuss them with him — still was angry when he saw the government malpractice unfolding this spring.

So is my father’s passing harder for me to accept because of the anger that he was suddenly taken from us before his time.

He assured me that coping with the loss of a loved one from the coronavirus — and the leadership failures that furthered the pandemic's spread, particularly as someone who warned against them — really is different than many other kinds of deaths.

After our conversation, I realized that while the cause of my father’s death might make the healing process harder, ultimately I’d find that healing the same way so many others have.

And the comfort of knowing that we can still help one another and try to save others is also something that makes death in the time of the coronavirus different