As a Latina, physical touch and embraces are part of how I cope with the pain of grief. The coronavirus robs us of those touches, of that intimacy. I miss the tears of my friends touching my own face as we hold each other, breathing the same air in silent mourning, in place of answers we can’t give or have. In the past, my friend Lorena Borjas and I have grieved that way for others. The virus has now also taken that from me.

On Monday morning, March 30, I woke around 7:30 to see I had a missed call from Coney Island Hospital. I had been calling the hospital daily for the last week to check on Ms. Borjas, who was hospitalized after falling sick with Covid-19. I dialed the number and eventually her doctor came on the line. She started to say “unfortunately …” and I didn’t have to hear the rest to know that she was gone. I was inconsolable.

I met Ms. Borjas in 2005, at a club in Jackson Heights, in Queens, where she had organized H.I.V. tests. At the time I thought I was better than “those girls working in the streets.” I was an escort, working out of my SoHo apartment. But later, as I spiraled into addiction, I found myself walking the streets near that club. There she was again, giving out condoms. This time, I needed them.

Many of us have been forsaken by our families, found ourselves homeless and deprived of support from teachers, co-workers and employers. We’ve lived through extreme poverty — have made cohabitation with risk and danger part of our normal. Transgender women of color — like she was, like I am — know the uncertainty of taking each step as if it may be our last. We know the weariness of walking under the weight of transphobia, racism and misogyny.