Articles & Features

Responding to the Grief Pandemic by Adrian Nelson

For more than 160 years, my family of funeral directors has worked with and learnt from grieving people. The global coronavirus pandemic has caused a separate pandemic of grief, one where we as a global community are experiencing immeasurable loss.

The first challenges identified as funeral directors at the start of this pandemic were practical ones. Immediately we addressed how to best protect our own team to ensure that we can continue to deliver our important social service.

Looking abroad to China and Italy (and then the USA and Great Britain), our colleagues overseas were under immense pressure dealing with the high death rate, the nature of the deaths and the shortage of supplies and equipment. It was critical to prepare the best we could, striving to source from outside our regular supply chains our supplies of personal protective equipment or hand sanitiser. This projected spike in deaths in Australia necessitated us to identify where to attain specialist equipment such as portable refrigeration units should we require additional cool rooms.

These technical and practical considerations remain very real, but what became more transparent was the human and psychological impact to us and to the families we serve. Within a week, we experienced three sets of tighter restrictions on who and how many could attend a funeral. The Federal and State Governments made the right call for the exemption of funerals to the mass gathering rules. It showed that our Governments understand the value of a funeral and why we have them, when other countries, including neighbours New Zealand, even banned funeral services.

As human beings, whenever our attachments are threatened, harmed, or severed, we naturally grieve. We are all grieving our own losses during this pandemic – losses of our freedom, of our interaction with friends, family and colleagues, of our work, and of our favourite activities. You may currently identify with Elisabeth Kubler Ross’s defined five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance.

With most of society now experiencing some element of grief, spare a thought for families who have experienced a death. For these, grieving in our current circumstances is multiplied. More than ever, there is a need for a meaningful funeral.

Grief counsellor and death educator Dr Alan Wolfelt has identified why funerals have existed for thousands of years across cultures. He writes that “a meaningful funeral is a rite of passage that helps us move from life before a death to life after a death”. There are fundamental reasons we have funerals. These include:

• It helps us accept the finality of death and that someone has died. During the pandemic, not all family members can visit in hospital or nursing homes, and others can’t travel distance to be near. The ability to view their family member after death can help with this acceptance.
• A funeral helps us foster memories of the person who has died and when we come together to share our memories, we learn things we did not know and how the person’s life touched others. Technology is able to step in during this time of isolation, with online Tribute Walls and funeral webcasts enabling memories to be shared. As I write, 270 people are tuned into one of our live funeral streams, with friends watching across Australia, Europe and North America.
• Whilst funerals are in remembrance of those who die, they are for the living. It is a special time to support each other in grief. Webcasts of the funeral and online wakes via platforms like Zoom are much better than no gathering at all. Yet no matter the technology, nothing ever will really replace a human hug. When the restrictions are over, we will see a boom of gatherings to remember past friends.
• When we grieve but don’t mourn, our emotions can fester inside. Expression doesn’t have to be verbal. When words are inadequate, we have ritual. Elements of a funeral, such as the presence of the casket, meaningful music or images, and the stories within a eulogy, promote the expression of feelings. Cultural and religious rituals play their part with some. With many of these elements absent from current funerals, there is a need for us find our own ways to express these feelings and mourn, which can be difficult.
• The bigger questions in life are brought to attention at a funeral. Without a funeral, the grief experience can be more chaotic and unanswered, with many people feeling lost and alone. Spirituality, faith and religion play an important part.

Death and grief has been elevated in a way not seen in most of our lifetimes. Fortunately in Australia, we have yet to see a significant increase in the death rate because of the virus. However it is having a major impact on how we deal with death.

Australians have begun to appreciate different vocations with a new perspective: supermarket workers, delivery drivers and of course our wonderful emergency service people and first responders.  Added to this list should be those professional men and women who strive to make a difference after death, to help the grieving and to create meaningful funeral experiences. They our last responders, the funeral directors.

Adrian Nelson is Chief Executive Officer of Nelson Bros Funeral Services and a fifth-generation funeral director.