Grief in the time of coronavirus
Many have made huge sacrifices during the lockdown, but none like the grieving families unable to hold funerals or tangihanga for loved ones.
On the driveway of a suburban Christchurch home, a family gather near a table bearing face masks and disinfectant, their heads bowed, tears flowing.
A mourner wails ‘‘Mum’’. The plaintive cry echoes around the otherwise silent street as relatives carry the coffin of Elisapeta Fatualetala Fruean, 73, to a waiting hearse.
Undertaker Steven Phillips, in protective clothing and cobalt blue disposable gloves, stands respectfully to one side, hands clasped together in front of him.
It’s the last goodbye for their beloved mother, nana, aunty, grandmother and greatgrandmother. She was cremated with no family members allowed to be present.
This is the grim reality of death in the time of coronavirus.
During level 4 of the lockdown, restrictions meant cultural and religious rites were forbidden.
Many have made great personal sacrifices during this time for the benefit of the wider community.
Robbed of their loved ones, the lockdown meant grieving families have also been robbed of the opportunity to pay their respects and honour their lives.
Some New Zealanders died alone, separated from loved ones and familiar faces, living their final days surrounded only by masked strangers.
Grieving families had three options: the deceased could be kept at the funeral parlour until after the lockdown or be buried or cremated immediately, often without family present.
Our dead and their families have respected the lockdown rules but suffered ‘‘grave indignity’’ in recent weeks, say funeral workers.
At level 3, these restrictions had eased slightly but only a small private gathering of up to 10 people is permitted. Only those in the deceased’s ‘‘immediate bubble’’, or with whom they were self-isolating before death, could attend. No food or drink was allowed.
Those people could view the body but kissing, washing or touching the body could not occur.
Ahead of the lockdown, Fruean family members made hasty trips from around New Zealand and Australia for their matriarch’s final days.
The driveway farewell was the closest the family came to a funeral service. Others, alone in their homes or in small groups, viewed the driveway farewell remotely from around New Zealand and Samoa, connected only by a laptop or smartphone screen. The footage was captured by shaking hands.
Five days earlier, on March 23, Moira Sa’imoa had taken breakfast to her unwell mother. Then she’d called emergency services, watching on helplessly as her mother’s health deteriorated before her eyes.
Ambulance officers had tended to her dying mother, for whom Sa’imoa had cared during years of treatment for first ovarian and, later, lung cancer.
The woman everyone called Peta died of a heart attack about midday on March 23, her joyous yet frail heart beating for the final time, exactly a week before her 74th birthday.
She died surrounded by her four daughters and her beloved 6-yearold grandson, Isaiah, in the home she shared with daughter Moira and son-in-law Poe Sa’imoa.
Nana and grandson were so close that his bed was pushed against her hospital bed because they didn’t like to be far from each other even in sleep.
His young face was one of Peta’s last sights.
Her mother’s death first became real for Sa’imoa when Andrew, the ambulance officer, gently bowed his head in her lounge in the universal gesture of sorrow.
‘‘I took her breakfast and four hours later she was dead,’’ says Sa’imoa. ‘‘The funeral director, Steven Phillips, was great. He made sure we had Mum back home with us before the lockdown started at midnight that night.
‘‘There were 14 of us in our bubble. We had Mum with us for four days, we were lucky to have that time.’’
Peta had discussed her funeral wishes with her daughter but these final wishes could not be fulfilled.
‘‘Mum’s cremation was on the Saturday but no-one from the family could go,’’ says Sa’imoa. ‘‘She definitely wanted to be cremated so that we could take her ashes back to Samoa. It was in the way the entire funeral was conducted that was different.’’
Neither the traditional service or fa’asamoa could be held.
‘‘I believe she would have been happy with how it all went, given the circumstances, but it was still incredibly hard.’’
The family celebrated Peta’s life on her birthday, March 30.
‘‘Mum was big in the church, everyone knew her,’’ says Sa’imoa. ‘‘She loved bingo and her garden, those were her things. We all got together [in the bubble] and played bingo, which I personally don’t like, but I was the bingo caller and I did it for Mum.
‘‘We made up funny names for the numbers and had Zoom calls with the family in Samoa.’’
Sa’imoa and her family willingly stuck to the rules of the lockdown, but not being able to honour her mum’s final requests had been difficult to bear.
‘‘I have really been finding it tough recently . . . We have had six deaths in the family during the lockdown. It’s all adding up.’’
Trudie Vos, manager of Auckland-based The Grief Centre, says not being able to say goodbye to a loved one is incredibly difficult.
‘‘There is so much about what people expect to be able to do and receive after a bereavement and that has all been taken away, even the most basic of touch, a hug, an arm around the shoulder.
‘‘It is very hard for anyone who is grieving to not have access to the things they would normally have access to . . . these rituals are important.
‘‘At the moment I think people are still in Covid-19 shock . . . It is going to have a huge impact on our community. We are awash with grief on so many fronts. People should seek help when they need it.’’
She steered people towards the ‘‘excellent’’ Covid-19 grief resource information released by the Funeral Directors Association of New
Zealand (FDANZ) to support bereaved families, wha¯ nau and friends.
FDANZ president
Gary Taylor says the pandemic and lockdown have been very difficult for its workers.
‘‘Our whole reason for existence is to make sure families have a positive grief experience and because of the restrictions we are not able to do that,’’ he says. ‘‘We are then put very much in the front line that we have had to tell people they can’t attend or, at level 3, that they can only have 10 people at a gathering. It is traumatic.’’
Funeral directors are ‘‘gate keepers’’. ‘‘The ritual and ceremony is something we have done as human beings since time immemorial.
‘‘A funeral is a rite of passage, a transition . . . from the time mum, dad, grandad is physically with us, we transition to the place where they are only with us in memories,’’ says Taylor.
‘‘The funeral is the transition point, where we transfer ourselves from one to the other. If we miss that emotional transfer there tend to be big issues down the track.’’
Before Covid-19, 90 people died each day on average. During lockdown, deaths have decreased.
‘‘We are probably looking at a 10-15 per cent reduction in the number of people dying at the moment.’’
Taylor says about 2500 people died during level 4 of the lockdown.
As lockdown began, funeral directors activated their disaster response plan.
The worst-case scenario was preparing for ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of deaths, he says. ‘‘We worked with various agencies – police, civil defence – around our storage capabilities around New Zealand, whether we needed to update that and prepare refrigerated containers’’.
They needed to know the number of people who might need burying daily.
During level 4, a twice-weekly nationwide survey of undertakers monitored the level of ‘‘available space’’.
‘‘If you have a serious increase, the physical capability of transferring [bodies] . . . there’s a tipping point. Thankfully we haven’t had to take extreme measures.’’
Some of the country’s morgues hold the bodies of tourists. Their families wait helplessly half a world away, ‘‘stuck in limbo’’.
Taylor says he is attempting to repatriate a body from his funeral parlour and knew of other funeral directors also holding visitors’ bodies in their premises.
‘‘We have somebody here we are waiting to repatriate to the UK. Everything is ready, the issue is trying to get a flight, they are few and far between,’’ he says.
‘‘It is horrible for the families, particularly if you are in the UK or China waiting . . . it must be traumatic.’’
Funeral directors have faced additional costs during the pandemic and have had difficulties accessing supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitiser.
‘‘We had conversations with the Government around this and the interpretation was that funeral services were viewed as an essential service, but not an essential healthcare service,’’ says Taylor.
‘‘We have had to buy our own PPE, which has been a huge financial impact. People don’t see us as essential to the health sector, but we are coming into contact with the same people, yet we are funding our PPE ourselves.’’
When he went to Burwood Hospital, to transport people who had died from Covid-19, Phillips, of Christchurch-based Just Funerals, says he took every precaution.
‘‘I’ve dealt with a couple of cases of Covid-19. I go to do the pick-up in my disposable overalls, mask and gloves,’’ he says. ‘‘The hardest thing is going into rest homes. It’s bad enough for residents to see a funeral director with a gurney normally, never mind in all the gear in a pandemic, it is frightening for the residents.’’
Phillips says he works with rest home staff to ensure his visits are timed so residents are in bed to avoid adding to their distress.
Steven Davey of Just Funerals says he has experienced a backlash from mourners when enforcing the new rules. ‘‘We are seen as the bad guys, but we feel for people, we really do.’’
The business has offered to hold bodies until level 2, when services of 100 will probably be allowed. ‘‘The feedback we are getting is that emotionally they can’t handle the thought of their loved one, excuse the phrase, lying around for up to a month so their family can have a funeral later.’’
Mothers had grieved for their children alone. Spouses of ‘‘40, 50 years’’ had the love of their life die alone, in care or hospital, which meant they were then buried or cremated alone.
‘‘Some situations are awful. A woman was fine before the lockdown, she was in a bubble with a young child,’’ he explains. ‘‘She was diagnosed with a terminal illness and died two weeks into the lockdown. No one could attend . . .
‘‘There are 85-year-old grandmothers on their own at home grieving their husband with just a goldfish for company. What would you do if it was your granny?’’
Sourcing floral tributes has also proved difficult. ‘‘There’s not a lot of flowers around. We have been to the supermarket and lined up. We have gone to the dairy looking to see what we can find, but options are limited.’’
People had found unique personal ways to say their final goodbyes. ‘‘Many people are writing letters which we place with their loved one,’’ says Davey. ‘‘A lot of people have found that really special.’’
Phillips has also been innovative in helping families.
‘‘Something I’ve been able to [do] without breaking any rules is driving [the hearse] by the family’s house on the way to the cremation or burial,’’ he says.
‘‘The family stood outside, . . . I stopped on the side of the road. They stayed where they were. The family later told me it was really special. It was just half an hour of my time but the family absolutely cherished it.’’
When the restrictions relax, Taylor hopes to offer memorial services for those who had been affected.
‘‘Losing someone you love and care for is an emotional event, we need to deal with it correctly and that is through meaningful funerals.’’
Davey echoes these sentiments. ‘‘It’s an important part of the grieving process. Once the threat has gone, we will safely have something together to remember them. We are actively encouraging people to do this.’’
Phillips says that, overall, people have understood it is a ‘‘fact of life’’ that they needed to follow Government regulations. ‘‘By following the rules we are saving lives, that’s the way I look at it.’’
Sometimes a stranger’s kindness can have a big impact.
As the cremation service for Peta started, Phillips rang Sa’imoa. ‘‘We talked over the phone,’’ says Sa’imoa. ‘‘He let me know that he was with Mum the whole time, so she wasn’t alone. He has become almost like another family member through this.’’
On his way home from work, Phillips made a special trip. ‘‘I returned her ashes to Moira. She came outside her house. I placed her mother’s urn down and stepped back. She picked her up. It was a toughie.’’
When the lockdown and pandemic ends, Sa’imoa will still fulfil her mother’s last request. ‘‘I’m taking Mum home to Samoa.’’