‘If they won’t listen to a doctor, maybe they’ll listen to an undertaker’
A COVID-19 message from a so-called ‘last responder’
In a normal month, Symonds’ Funeral Home in Highwood handles five to eight funerals. As the COVID-19 pandemic peaked here in May, that number hit 44.
The vast majority of those deaths resulted from the coronavirus, according to Irving Symonds III, a second-generation funeral home operator who’s only now starting to see his workload begin to ease.
“It’s still busy,” says Symonds, who spent much of May with families lined up outside his office to make arrangements, keeping him so busy he got only three hours sleep a night trying to keep up. “It’s not like what it was. We really got slammed.”
As Illinois continues the reopening process and life returns to some semblance of normal, it would be a tragedy if people failed to keep in mind that what we’ve been dealing with is real — and continues to be real.
I can’t think of any place better to bring that home than a funeral home, where death is about as real as real can get.
“We’re the last responders,” says Symonds, a reference to his profession that has been popularized during the pandemic.
Funeral home operators have been very much on the front lines of dealing with COVID-19, just not in a lifesaving capacity.
That has made this a difficult three-month stretch for Symonds and his colleagues as they have picked up bodies from nursing homes and hospitals and witnessed the despair that the illness has brought.
“A lot of times, we would leave the nursing home feeling huge heartbreak,” he says.
Funeral homes also deal with families who’ve suffered more than normal because of the restrictions necessitated by the disease.
“People in the beginning were very, very frustrated,” Symonds says. “They couldn’t get in to nursing homes to see loved ones. They couldn’t see their families.”
Most of the funerals Symonds has been handling are for people who were living in nursing homes, where the infection rate has been much higher than among the general public.
His funeral home gets a greater share of those cases because it is one of the relative few in his area to accept Medicaid for payment, he says.
The advanced age of most COVID victims is no consolation.
One of the funerals he handled was for a 101-year-old World War II veteran Symonds knew. He says that, if not for the coronavirus, the man “would have been around for a long time. He was a health-food nut. He was in good, good shape.”
Symonds was speaking after finishing with a burial service at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery near Joliet, where he relished the opportunity to enjoy the nature walk.
In addition to the Highwood location, Symonds’ family operates a small funeral home in the city on the Northwest Side and another in Grayslake and a crematorium in Lake Villa that handled 427 cremations in May, up from the usual 250 to 275 a month.
Symonds must take every precaution on the job, treating every deceased person as a possible coronavirus victim. Still, he says, “I’m not going to let it rule my life.”
AS ILLINOIS CONTINUES THE REOPENING PROCESS AND LIFE RETURNS TO SOME SEMBLANCE OF NORMAL, IT WOULD BE A TRAGEDY IF PEOPLE FAILED TO KEEP IN MIND THAT WHAT WE’VE BEEN DEALING WITH IS REAL — AND CONTINUES TO BE REAL.
Work for him and his colleagues means wearing full PPE from the time they pick up the body. But he says he’s not one of those people who won’t even come out of their houses.
My purpose here is not to scare anybody. Symonds says the news media have done too much of that.
Nor is this an argument against reopening the economy. It’s definitely time to move in that direction, though it would sure be nice if folks took the precautions of face masks and social distancing more seriously, if only as a courtesy to others. How that became a political statement might be the biggest indicator of just how screwed up we are.
But I’m not giving up on spreading the idea that COVID-19 remains serious business even as we redirect our attention to preexisting societal ills.
“There’s no other way to say it other than it’s real,” Symonds says. “People need to take it seriously, although I know there are many people who don’t.
“If they won’t listen to a doctor, maybe they’ll listen to an undertaker.”