Worcester, MASS--

17, 347.

"A horrifying number and one that is very hard to grasp until you see it," the Rev. Meredyth Ward said. 

A work of art draped across the sanctuary at All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester represents the lives lost to covid-19 in Massachusetts during the state of emergency. 

"Sometimes I was adding a few, sometimes I was adding a heartbreaking number, " Ward said. "Covid had peaks and valleys. Sometimes it would be 10 people, sometimes it would be 150 people. "

Ward is a priest associate at the church and worked on the project from May of 2020 to May of 2021. Each week she added new piece of cloth or ribbon to honor another life taken.

"At first, I thought about making it somber. If you look, the first few feet of it are greys and whites and pastels, " Ward said. "Then I remembered these were living, breathing, active people and this was about their lives as much as it was about their deaths."

What began as a way to help her young grandsons understand what was happening during the pandemic, quickly turned into something more. 

"The kids had a really hard time understanding the numbers. They thought that 1,000 people dying wasn't that many people because they are kids," Ward said. "Kids don't get it. Adults don't get it."

The varying colors of fabric tied side by side on a line symbolize the way covid-19 impacted everyone. 

"So many people were living alone or dying in isolation in a hospital bed without a family near them," Ward said. "We were connected only by video chat."

No matter how you were touched by the pandemic, Ward said the nearly 300-yard-long artwork stuns most people to who see it. 

"It's sort of an intake of breath. Like, I had no idea there was that many. I didn't know what that would look like," Ward said. "Sometimes people would come up to me and say, can you tell me where June of 2023 would be? And then you'd know they lost someone during that time."

It's now been 5 years since Ward started the project and she feels society still hasn't acknowledged what happened. Ward said she hopes this memorial starts that process. 

"This is the first step and hopefully it will help people have the conversations they need to have," she said. 

The art installation is on display at the church through Lent.