Tag: covid19

Six Surprising Reasons Why COVID19 Is Worse Than We Imagined.

The COVID19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown have led to us face losses on an unimaginable scale, and it’s not just our loved ones we are grieving for.

Grief is defined as ‘a feeling of intense sorrow due to the loss of someone or something’. Obviously, the intensity of that feeling depends on the closeness of who or what was lost and the impact it will have on your life as you move forward.

The current pandemic has led us to a situation where we are having to contemplate a multiplicity of losses in every area of our lives.

Types of loss

Loss of a family member or loved one

Death is by far the most common cause of grief but the pandemic has added an extra layer of problems to the grieving process. It may be that the loved one died in isolation, either chosen or enforced and not surrounded by family. The death may have been traumatic as a result of COVID19 or unexpected for the same reason.

Once the death has occurred, then the surviving family is left to deal with the arrangement, often remotely, without the physical support or contact that is essential for comfort at such stressful times. The funeral service itself adds another layer of stress as families are forced to grieve socially distanced or in isolation, without being able to comfort one another.

Loss of job or income

Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s hastily put together support package through the furlough scheme that has saved people in the short term, it was never intended to be a long-term solution and now companies are starting to feel the impact as we have seen some surprisingly robust high street names seek help or go out of business completely; Cath Kidston, Victoria’s Secret, Monsoon, Oasis, Carluccio’s, Laura Ashley and Prezzo to name just a few.

Employees are now sensing a real fear of redundancy or unemployment as companies come to terms with life after lockdown.

In addition to this, there is also the physical sense of loss that one might feel at not actually going in to a place of work, meeting colleagues and losing that daily ritual.

Loss of relationships

Being forced together day after day for months, will have put immense strain on some relationships, where a couple are not used to being together for such long periods. In addition, there have been documented, and understandable concerns over people who find themselves living 24/7 with an abusive partner.

There is also the opposite, where a relationship may have just begun prior to lockdown and hasn’t had the chance to progress in a normal way and may never recover.

One of the biggest sources of strain however, must surely be for families of NHS and other front line workers who chose to self-isolate away from their own families to take care of COVID19 patients. This type of loss can be likened to that felt by families of soldiers departing for war. When a loved one says goodbye, there is a very real chance that this may be the last time you’ll see them.

Loss of events

While we have endured lockdown as well as we possibly can, time has still marched on and birthdays have come and gone, holiday dates, weddings may have been cancelled. All of these may well have involved a lot of planning and spending money on deposits. The stress of loss has been subsequently exacerbated by holiday companies being vague about if and when repayments will be made.

Loss of small pleasures

How many times during the lockdown have you almost suggested popping to the pub on a Friday, or going to a favourite restaurant for a meal?

Plenty, I’m sure.

But the lockdown has effectively stripped us of that freedom to choose what we do and taken away the small pleasures that we took for granted.

Loss of personal space

Before lockdown our lives were demarcated into separate compartments. We left the house to go to work or to the gym, now the boundaries between these areas has become blurred. Your spare room or bedroom may have become your office, your lounge may double up as a gym space. All of this adds to the stress of coping with the day to day impact of the virus.

There is no doubt that the multiplicity of losses we have had to endure has been unprecedented. And whilst we seem to be reaching the end of lockdown in many countries, we should prepare ourselves for the backlash, not of a second wave, but of serious mental health issues for large portions of the population as they try and come to terms with the sheer scale of what has been lost.

How Coronavirus Has Impacted Funerals At Every Level.

From Zoom meetings to Social Distancing, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on funerals but have there been other, more subtle changes?

Pre-service

One of the first things to be impacted when the coronavirus pandemic hit and we went into lockdown was the immediate absence of face to face meetings in a family home. It was where you could see a family in an environment they felt comfortable in and see photographs of their loved ones and get a feel for what they were like and how the service would be pitched.

I enquired online to a group I am part of, whether any celebrants had noticed more subtle, less obvious changes. A number of celebrants reported that they have noticed themselves ‘going the extra mile ‘ for families to make sure that everything is exactly right. Making numerous phone calls and being in more frequent contact up to the day of the service ‘so families feel like they know me already’ said Jane a celebrant based in the North West.

‘So families feel like they know me’

Jane, a celebrant in the North West

Face to face meetings were quickly replaced by telephone meetings and then the rise of Zoom meetings, and now we must wonder sometimes how we managed before. Of course, without Zoom or Skype, we celebrants are left with that awkward approach to a stranger on the day of the service saying ‘ You’re not xxx by any chance? ‘ and then instantly resisting the urge to shake hands or hug as we would naturally do.

One very welcome change that has come about, is that members of the public have been showing their respect by bowing to a passing hearse or removing headwear. This was, of course, quite the tradition many years ago but has seen a mini revival in current times.

During the service

And the social distancing that has been forced on us has impacted in other ways. It was heartbreaking at a recent service to see a mother sitting 6 feet away from her daughter, grieving the loss of her husband and neither could do anything to comfort the other.

At the crematorium, I for one, have noticed that fewer families have been opting to have a printed Order of Service sheet. This may be because Order of Service sheets, if they are ordered from a professional printer usually come with a minimum order of 20 and increase in batches of 20. No use if there are only 6-10 people allowed to attend.

What has happened more is that families have taken the decision to self-print, sometimes printing the entire eulogy in booklet form so they can follow along and send a copy off to those unable to attend.

In terms of the eulogy itself, I have noticed a number of families opting to write a shortened version of the eulogy themselves to be read out. Their argument ?

‘There’s no point going into detail about their life. Everyone there knew about it anyway.’

This isn’t meant in an uncaring or brutal way. The family are acutely aware that the service they are having is not what they would have wanted. They are doing the best they can in extreme circumstances and the eulogy is, quite often to the point and matter-of-fact.

In the pre-Covid services when the crematorium is full of mourners, ready to celebrate the life of a much-loved relative, you can sense an energy and feed off it, like a performer on stage. Lately, it has felt increasingly difficult to engage with only up to 10 mourners in attendance.

Post-service

There is a feeling that, if a family is doubly unfortunate to lose a loved one anyway and to lose them during lockdown, they are resigned to the fact that the funeral is more of a symbolic gesture. It is something that society expects of them. And whilst previously the service could be an occasion to celebrate and maybe even enjoy a laugh together, the family is resigned to the fact that they should plan a memorial service for ‘When all this is over ‘ and they can say a proper farewell.

There is no doubt that the Covid 19 pandemic will have left its’ mark throughout our society at many levels by the time it is over. Funeral services are just a small part of that, but we, as funeral service professionals have had to adapt and families too have had to do the same.

One thing is for certain, when all this is finally over, things will look very different indeed.

Does Death Cafe Offer A Way Of Coping With COVID-19?

The Covid19 pandemic has brought us face to face with our mortality and that of our friends and relations in a way that few of us have ever experienced before. Is this going to be a major step towards society’s acceptance of death as something to be discussed openly?

The Death Cafe movement was the brainchild of Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz and the first ‘Cafe Mortel’ was held in Neuchatel in 2004 and since then has gained a foothold in more than 70 countries worldwide. In the UK, the baton for the Death Cafe movement was taken up by Jon Underwood and the first meeting was held at his London home in 2011.

The aim of the cafe movement back then, and to this day, is to break the ‘tyrannical secrecy’ surrounding the topic of death, by offering anyone interested a safe place to discuss all things death-related in a non-judgmental environment.

The outbreak of Covid19 has led to a surge of interest in Death Cafes reported from all areas and whilst facilitators cannot hold face to face meetings, they are still arranging meetings online via Zoom or other facetime apps.

What happens at a Death cafe?

First of all, the meetings are not always held in cafes. But they do always supply tea, coffee, and cake. A facilitator will lead the discussions and questions like ‘How would you like to die? In your sleep? In a hospital? ‘ ‘Would you like a funeral or cremation?’ ‘What music would you like to have played?’ There is no right or wrong answer and no obligation to give an answer.

Importantly, the cafes are non-profit and rely on contributions from attendees and there is no agenda either in the sense of what to talk about or in the sense of leading people to a decision. They are most definitely not a platform for sales or promoting businesses.

And while a lot of attendees find themselves going to a Death Cafe because they have experienced a loss first-hand, the cafes don’t offer bereavement support or counselling. There are no guest-speakers, set questions or topics to discuss. The cafes are not morbid in any way and their aim is to make people make the most of their lives by embracing the inevitable and discussing it openly.

Why now?

If we were to turn the clock back just over 100 years or so, we would have found ourselves in very different times. Times where our acceptance of death was far more heightened than it is today. Families were much larger because the high rate of infant mortality meant that families expected to lose some children in infancy.

Husbands, fathers and brothers went off to fight in one of the bloodiest wars the world has seen and families weren’t ever sure they would see them again. Medicine, hygiene and hospital care was nothing like as advanced as it is now and death was all around. Since those times, as a society we have sleep-walked into believing that for some reason death won’t happen and we shouldn’t talk about it.

Jon Underwood pointed out that Western society has effectively outsourced its’ discussions on death to third parties, doctors, priests and funeral directors. And as a result, this outsourcing that has led to us being ill-equipped to deal with death when it is an inevitable part of life.

The last taboo

If we are to take anything positive away from this pandemic then it must surely be that it has opened a door to people wanting to discuss topics related to death; living wills, funeral plans, or advanced care discussions.

Our death may not be exactly what we expected and whilst we can’t plan for exactly when it will happen, what we can do is go some way towards opening the discussions about the inevitable and taking on the last taboo.

In my role as a celebrant, I am in no way endorsing Death Cafe, but should you wish to look into this further and find where your nearest or next meeting might be, then go to https://deathcafe.com/