Families whose loved ones die during the COVID-19 pandemic face unprecedented restrictions and challenges. How the virus has changed funerals and how families grieve:
April 20, 2020 -- Families whose loved ones die during the COVID-19 pandemic face unprecedented restrictions and challenges. To not say goodbye to loved ones, to not have loved ones attend funeral services, or to not even find a permanent resting place for a loved one is changing how people grieve.
“A funeral director in the Detroit area summed it up -- in 40 years, he’s never seen anything like it. There’s such a high volume of deaths, it’s hard to keep up with it. There is little time to have any sort of service, because they’re just trying to take care of the dead,” says Christopher Robinson, a board member of the National Funeral Directors Association and vice president and general manager of Robinson Funeral Homes in Easley, SC.
“Funeral directors normally see 40 families in a month. Now we’re seeing that number in the course of a few days. Families are constantly calling funeral homes to see if they can care for the deceased, and they’re doing their best to accommodate them,” says Mike Lanotte, JD, executive director of the New York State Funeral Directors Association in Albany.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security last month designated mortuary workers as critical infrastructure workers, which enables these “last responders” to have priority access to personal protection equipment and to be exempt from “shelter-in-place” mandates.We're all exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally. I've gone days without seeing my kids and only sleeping a few hours. When I do sleep, I dream that I'm taking on yet another death.
She also said there was a shortage of PPE, bleach, and disinfectants. “I disinfect my morgue every morning and afternoon. I'm sitting in bleach-stained clothes as I type this. Again, I work for a wonderful company that's working round the clock to get us what we need, but there's just a global shortage. We're having to reuse masks and gowns .”
“Every funeral home is having storage problems -- people are calling, asking if we can hold a funeral this or next week or can we hold off until more family can gather. The answer unfortunately is a resounding no,” he says. In New York City, officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day -- nearly six times the number held in recent years, according to ProPublica.
A home funeral was not on Kate Merriwether’s radar when her 84-year-old mother, Sherry Lynch, passed away in hospice care in Portland, OR, last month. Merriwether had planned a private cremation ceremony with a few relatives and a large memorial service for extended family and friends a few months later. But when the pandemic happened, the crematory near her home stopped allowing families to be involved, and the memorial service was put on hold indefinitely.
Barrett also suggested using Zoom to stream the ceremony to those who could not attend in person. “We put the computer on a Lazy Susan chair so it could spin around the room to focus on the person talking.”
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