‘WE COULDN’T BE WITH HIM’
Laura Reid talks to families who have lost loved ones during the pandemic, how restrictions in hospitals and at funerals caused extra anguish, and the challenge of isolation.
We can’t get to our loved ones, we can’t have that hug, we can’t go round and see somebody for a cup of tea and say I’m really struggling. It’s one of the main things stumbling people.
Gill, a volunteer at national charity Cruse Bereavement Care.
THERE’S A common thread that has run throughout the global experience of coronavirus – it is facing the unknown. Life has been engulfed with uncertainty and for those who have lost a loved one during the grips of the pandemic, the reality of saying goodbye has involved navigating a path that has been far from familiar.
For Jo Hammond, who lost her father Bruce in April after he contracted the virus, that has been particularly difficult. “Everything we know about death and the end of life has been taken away from us with Covid,” she says. “The main challenge has been that it’s not what we know. You have an understanding of this is what happens and what people do [after someone dies]. But suddenly, everything about death changed.”
Former pharmacist and popular rotarian Bruce, 89, had been on a Caribbean cruise with his wife Angela in March and several members on board were diagnosed with Covid-19. When the couple, from Guiseley, returned to the UK, Angela fell ill and was admitted to hospital. After she was discharged, Bruce became ill. He passed away at St James’s, in Leeds.
With visiting times suspended, apart from exceptional circumstances, to help halt the spread of the virus, Jo wasn’t able to see her father in hospital.
“It’s [normally] that if somebody’s ill, you go and see them, there’s family around, you get a call, you squeeze their hand. We had none of that. Mum was fortunate in that she was allowed to visit when they knew there wasn’t going to be a good outcome, but it was just so hard that we couldn’t go there and be with him.”
Jo and her family opted for a cremation but coronavirus measures meant no family and friends could enter the crematorium and gatherings outside were restricted to up to 10 family members, with each household socially distanced. They decided family and friends would line the streets for the passing of the hearse and a virtual service then took place at the same time as the cremation, with around 60 people joining in via Zoom.
“You could see all these faces popping up as people logged on.” Jo says. “In a crematorium, we would be sat on the front row with our backs to people, focused 100 per cent on the coffin visually...seeing a coffin is very emotive and this took that negative emotion away and replaced it with the people from his life – that was our visual. It was very much about who he was, the people, his life and humour.”
Though at first Jo found it hard to look beyond what was not able to happen, her message to others would be to focus on what can happen. It is an outlook the family embraced and one shared by Yorkshire-based Full Circle Funerals, which organised Bruce’s service.
Founder Sarah Jones says even during this unprecedented period, there are options that allow people to create a meaningful funeral for loved ones.
“They come into the arrangement knowing that it’s going to be different to what it could have been six months ago but a lot of people think that nothing is possible. Actually once you set out the different options and present them with what is possible, people are creating very beautiful funerals and it’s exceeding their expectations...people have felt they have still been able to put something together that was really special, that recognises their loss and that they feel proud of.”
Of course, adapting to what is available is not without its challenges, as Dean of Wakefield Cathedral, The Very Reverend Simon Cowling, reflects. “People are having to make decisions about who will be there [at funerals] and if you have a large family then those decisions are really distressing.”
The Dean has been involved in one socially distanced funeral for a regular Cathedral worshipper. It was held at the city’s crematorium and attended only by the man’s son, who is planning to hold a memorial service for his father at a later date. It was a “strangely moving experience,” the Dean says. “What I felt afterwards was a sense that the journey from life to death had been made much more real somehow. It was very dignified but quite stark.”
A big change for him was not going to meet family members in person prior to the day. “You can’t actually physically go and sit with them, reflect on the deceased’s life with them, pray with them. It means that level of pastoral comfort which they may rightly expect at that point in their lives just isn’t available and I think that’s really hard.”
Certainly, dealing with grief has been particularly challenging for some, whilst distanced from support networks. National charity Cruse Bereavement Care says physical isolation can make feelings of grief and loneliness more intense and harder to process. A volunteer for the Leeds branch, who requested to be named only as Gill, reflects on the impact of the lockdown period.
“We can’t get to our loved ones, we can’t have that hug, we can’t go round and see somebody for a cup of tea and say I’m really struggling with the loss of whoever. It’s one of the main things that’s really stumbling people. It kind of locks the grief down in a way.”
Karen Wilkinson has found that lack of contact with loved ones difficult after losing her husband Daniel in April. Daniel, 51, originally from Otley with an accountancy practice in the town, was taken ill suddenly in March and was diagnosed with pancreatitis. He spent five weeks in St James’s Hospital. Karen was originally able to visit, but when lockdown began, the only way she was able to see her husband was through video calls arranged by the ward – and she wishes there had been more. Daniel died the day before their daughter Millie turned seven.
Karen and their family opted for a burial service; it was restricted to ten attendees and limited to 20 minutes long. The hearse did a loop of Guiseley allowing Daniel’s friends to line the streets and pay their respects, many wearing Leeds United kits in homage to his devotion to the club. A livestream through Facebook also enabled people to see the service virtually.
The time that has followed has been particularly tough for Karen. At home with Millie, she has been trying to manage Daniel’s estate and “dealing with my grief and Millie’s grief, with very little support, and not through people not wanting to help”.
“Even practical things, doing homeschooling, housework – you have to crack on and do it because there’s no one else there that can. My daughter’s grief has come out in anger and frustration. That’s been really difficult to manage. Many times she’ll be in one bedroom crying and I’ll be in another crying because I’ve got no fight left.”
Karen is grateful she has been able to see her two older children at a distance; – they have visited and sat on her drive for a chat – but that too has been hard “If I’m upset, they feel dreadful that they can’t even pass me a tissue. It’s been really difficult.”
■ Cruse Bereavement Care has a free support helpline on 0808 808 1677.