At the beginning of March, Roger Balsdon was all set. For months, he and his wife, Gloria, had been planning the journey from their home in Plymouth, along England’s south coast, to Southampton, where they would board a cruise ship for a trip to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
It took only the blink of an eye, Balsdon says now, for his world, and the one around him, to go dark.
As the coronavirus spread, the Balsdons, wary of the risks of traveling during a pandemic, called off the trip. A few weeks later, Gloria died, unexpectedly, at age 76.