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Pandemic may gravely affect how we grieve

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By Correne Martin

 

Grieving the loss of a loved one is an intricate journey in itself. But when compounded with COVID-19’s power to strip society of that distinctive recovery process, people have not been able to mourn the death of their family members and friends as they desire.

This is the viewpoint from a funeral home. 

Out of 60 funerals that the Garrity Funeral Home, of Prairie du Chien, has had since the onset of the coronavirus around mid-March 2020, only three of those deaths, or .05 percent, were attributed to the virus. Those individuals were residents no longer living in the area, according to Mike Garrity, 23-year owner and funeral director. 

The remaining 57 funerals, however, honored people who had passed for various other reasons.  

A family member of one of them, in talking to Garrity, believes it was due to isolation. 

She profoundly stated, 

“My dad died of loneliness.”

According to Garrity, that has been the greatest impact of COVID-19 on the families he serves. That human touch, the natural tendency to gather and hug, shake hands, profess faith, and share in sadness while grieving “has been taken away.”  

“When she said that, we all looked at each other like ‘Wow!’” he recounted. “It goes back to all the training we’ve had (as funeral directors).” 

A healthy recovery, he said, is vital in the healing of that physical pain and overwhelming emotion. In Garrity’s experience, grieving has been complicated by COVID-19, not only for the families but also for the deceased’s friends, co-workers and acquaintances. 

“People want to do something. But they’ve been afraid because they’ve been curtailed,” he stated. 

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic’s first appearance in local communities, there was very little Centers for Disease Control guidance or education handed down to funeral homes about how they should proceed with serving their clients. 

“My biggest concern was actually the death call. Within the first couple weeks (of COVID-19), we had a person with it,” Garrity shared. “We carried disinfectant with us, glasses, gloves. When we got back, we were hyper-cautious about cleaning and attentive to everything. Everybody was apprehensive about handling people because we weren’t sure how potent the virus was.”

Eventually, he said, he learned the virus would die with its host, so that alleviated some of the anxiousness. 

As funerals persisted, and families were restricted to just 10 or fewer people by Wisconsin state mass gathering limitations, Garrity said about a dozen of his families either delayed services or excessively scaled down their rites. “There were some who didn’t do anything,” he noted. 

Garrity Funeral Home was set up to provide drive-through services, if it came to that, but never had to worry about it. Videotaping and online streaming of funeral services was offered, and people were able to sign guest books virtually. Garrity said, of the four online services they held, there were about 20 people watching, per service. The funeral home also provided one-person, private family member visitation as requested in order to limit COVID-19 exposure for loved ones concerned about underlying health conditions.

“No matter what, we’re always trying to adjust our funerals to whatever the families wishes are,” he added.

Now, six months into the pandemic, Garrity feels the general public is more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of COVID-19 and, certainly, has fallen in line with their opinions too. He personally gives credence to comorbidity and its negative impact on patients who contract the coronavirus. 

“The hyperbola of the whole thing has scared people so much, and I don’t know that it was warranted,” he said, noting that his non-COVID-19 funeral numbers are “way up” lately.

Garrity admits that his industry has suffered some negative financial repercussions due to the pandemic. However, he’s more discouraged by the struggle it has caused in balance with literal survival, as citizens—especially the elderly—have been forced to sacrifice social connections, and therefore quality of life.

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