Nanna Knudsen (70) is laying in her bedroom, the place where she misses Hans-Wiggo the most. After Hans-Wiggo's death, Nanna and her daughter Pipaluk went into isolation for 16 days, separately, while Nanna’s son, Frederik, was isolated in Spain. “It felt like I couldn’t breathe. I had to put my hand on my stomach, just to know it was there,” says Nanna about the time in isolation.
No one knows who passed the coronavirus to Hans-Wiggo or where it happened. Perhaps he got infected when he was shopping in a warehouse. Maybe he caught the virus from a family member or at the hospital, when he went for an examination before a planned surgery.
A Life Worth Dying For: On 19th March 2020, Hans-Wiggo Knudsen (75) died from coronavirus at Roskilde Hospital. Hans-Wiggo was among the first who died from the virus in Denmark. He leaves behind his wife Nanna Knudsen, daughter Pipaluk Lykke and son Frederik Høegh-Knudsen.
Hans-Wiggo was cremated so that his body could not pass on the infection. This differed from Greenlandic tradition. Greenland is Nanna's country of birth, where Pipaluk and Frederik grew up. Here, there is a strong tradition for gathering around the dead, singing and carrying the coffin to the burial grounds.
After Hans-Wiggo’s death, the family chose that the urn should be lowered into the soil, when Denmark lessened its restrictions on coronavirus. They wished that family and friends would be able to participate, get close to each other and give a proper goodbye. That would be in the spirit of Hans-Wiggo.