Local pastor speaks on celebrating Christmas after losing four loved ones to COVID-19

LELAND, NC (WWAY) — While people across country are eager to get together for the holiday, many are feeling grief this holiday because of the effects of COVID-19. A Leland pastor shared how he and his family are coping this Christmas after losing 4 family members this year to COVID-19.

Jerome Bullard, lead pastor of the Bridge of Life Community Church in Leland, who lost his son, father, brother, and mother-in-law to COVID-19 this year, and his family is greatly feeling their absences this Christmas.

“The grief is tough, it’s real. You can’t dodge it,” said Jerome Bullard, Bridge of Life Church pastor.

Within 18 days between July and August, Jerome Bullard says he lost his son, dad, and brother, and in October he lost his mother in law.

As his family and church members celebrate Christmas for the first time without many of their loved ones, Bullard says he finds comfort in his faith at this time.

“My son, and my dad, and my brother, and my mother in law, they’re all in heaven,” said Bullard. “The ones that have lost loved ones in the church through COVID, or whatever the case might be, if they were born again, they’re in heaven. So we find our peace and comfort in knowing, that we will see those loved ones again.”

Bullard says many people in his church’s congregation have also turned to their faith as they grieve over those close to them who died, going into the holiday.

“We that are living and hurting, and experiencing grief and sadness, we have to lean on God’s love, because God’s love is real,” said Bullard.

Bullard says his family is feeling the absence of all four, still trying to cope with the loss as the celebrate Christmas.

“It’s tough lately, there’s not a day that goes by that my wife and my daughter-in-law don’t cry. We actually had our Christmas last night, our family Christmas, and it really went well,” said Bullard. “Everybody had a little sad moment there when we talked about LJ, my son.”

He offers words of comfort to many others in the community going into the holiday without loved ones who have died this year.

“Hoping that it might help somebody, hoping that I might reach out and when a family maybe, — two to three months from now may be going through what we went through in ’21, they might say ‘well that pastor, he made it, and he gave praise to God in the midst of all of it, and that we can make it too,” said Bullard.

Bullard’s church closed its doors last year around Christmas, and recently paused in-person services out of precaution for its congregation, hoping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the omicron variant, with plans to reopen the first week of January.