Highlights
- says the inability to give your loved one a proper send-off may delay people’s responses to grief.
- Undertakers say cultural and religious rituals largely remain the same albeit modifications and smaller physical congregations.
- Online funerals are becoming interactive for transnational mourners to engage from afar.
Saying goodbye to a loved one has never been more difficult according to Sarah Godfrey, a clinical psychologist and chair of GriefLine.
Everyone is a little bit lost and where do we put these feelings?
GriefLine is experiencing an influx of calls from bereaved individuals who are struggling to make sense of their loss amid various COVID-19 restrictions throughout Australia.
People are unsure of how to support each other through grief when everything they are used to in the grieving process has stopped amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Godfrey says this isolating experience lacks the warmth and the empathy those in bereavement need when suffering grief and loss.
We are being asked to mourn in a very very different way that feels alien and doesn’t feel respectful to the person that’s passed.
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Its executive general manager of funerals in Australia, Lynne Gallucci says border restrictions mean that the closest family members are sometimes unable to physically attend a service.
Funeral homes are responding by creating new environments for mourners to come together in different ways.
Gallucci gives the example of an Asian family in Melbourne that asked their circle of friends to send a yellow rose with their name on it.
The roses were placed on the seats of the chapel where mourners would normally sit.
The ten people from family could see there were yellow roses representing all the members of their community that were thinking about them.
For those ultimately able to cross borders after lockdowns and prolonged travel restrictions, mourners are sometimes seeing their loved one for the first time after a long time apart in the viewing or at the funeral.
While you cannot control restrictions or border closures, Godfrey suggests that you can instead focus on what you can control when a loved one is dying or when you are unable to physically attend a funeral.
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How much can I do? How close can I get? What does close mean? Can I get someone to take an iPad in, I’ll just sit with them on screen.
Long-held cultural practices have also had to modify according to COVID-19 restrictions of different states and territories.
Dr. Bianca Brijnath, a medical anthropologist and director of social gerontology at the National Ageing Research Institute says this has been particularly distressing for culturally and linguistically diverse families as funerals are often an important cultural identity and rite of passage.
It’s an opportunity for communities to come together, families to come together, and to give each other support.
Gallucci says funeral services have had to shrink in congregation sizes, sometimes offering multiple viewings for smaller groups to spend time with the deceased.
In adherence to Melbourne restrictions, the culturally and religiously significant incense lighting ceremony for Buddhist and Taoist Asian families transformed into a drive through experience where mourners lit the incense stick and drove away.
When the family came out of the chapel, they could see the number of incense sticks and how many people were thinking of them.
With restrictions around private gatherings, Gallucci says a Pacific Islander family in Queensland decided to hire a food truck on location, providing all the guests with a box of take away meal in lieu of the normal feast.
Everybody was having the same meal and felt they were part of the feast.
Dr. Brijnath observes that transnational families living across continents are having to rely on social media to witness grief from a distance amid travel restrictions.
Whereas in the past, you might have dropped everything and gone to be with that particular family or friend to give them support.
Gallucci says while live streaming is not new in funerals, it is becoming more interactive in the COVID-19 world for international mourners to actually be able to participate in the official ceremony and deliver a eulogy.
She believes this type of online funeral service is likely to stay even after the coronavirus pandemic.
But Godfrey says callers to GriefLine find the fragmented digital connection and loss of human touch difficult to come to terms with.
The inability for people to collectively grieve and comfort each other will delay response to grief for the bereaved who themselves are confronted by other coronavirus-related stress factors.
Source: AAP Image/EPA/NARENDRA SHRESTHA
If you have experienced loss in 2020 probably the impact of it isn’t really going to hit until you’re back out in the community.
If you happen to be grieving in isolation, Godfrey suggests collecting a memory box of items that the person used to love, holding it close so that you can still be together in spirit.
That will transpire you through to your end grieving process when we accept they won’t be coming back but we still have a good strong memory of who they were to us.
Godfrey says there is no one way that will fit everyone in this very strange time to experience grief.
Your best thing is to grieve your way. Give yourself permission to change the rules a little if you need, knowing that there will be a time this stop and you will be able to be with family again.
And if you know of someone who has recently lost a loved one, Godfrey encourages reaching out without worrying about saying the wrong thing as the bereaved is already upset.
There are creative ways you can show you care by dropping off flowers, a card in the letter box or food packages at the gate.
The worst thing to do is to be absent in someone’s life because you’re feeling you don’t know what to say.
If you need language support, call the national Translating and Interpreting Service on 13 14 50.