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COVID-19 fundamentally transformed Americans’ understandings of the relationship between death, spirituality, religious community, and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic left millions grieving their loved ones without the consolation of traditional ways of mourning. Patients were admitted to hospitals and never seen again. Social distancing often meant conventional funerals could not be held. Religious communities of all kinds were disrupted at the exact moment mourners turned to them for support. These unprecedented circumstances caused dramatic transformations of not only communal rituals, but also how people make meaning after the losses of loved ones. This talk presents an intimate portrait of how COVID-19 changed the ways Americans approach, understand, and mourn death. This talk, by Natasha L. Mikles—author of Shattered Grief: How the Pandemic Transformed the Spirituality of Death in America—will tell the story of spiritual innovation, religious change, and the struggle to achieve personal and national self-understanding against the backdrop of mass casualties.