COVID-19 has changed burial ritual – but may have refreshed ways to connect and remember
This is not a tribute piece, nor a eulogy. There have been and will be other chances for that. Instead, this is a reflection and reaction to a question I was forced to answer. A question that this unusual pandemic year forced upon me and my family. It is one of those questions you never think you’ll have to ask: How do we mourn or memorialize a loved one at a time when we cannot gather together in large numbers?
My father died earlier this year. This is the first time I have lost someone in my immediate family. I realize that writing about it might be painful or uncomfortable for some. It is certainly uncomfortable for me.
I was unprepared for many things when it happened. But for all of the painful discoveries there were also comforting surprises. One of the gracious surprises for me was the readiness with which people were ready to open up and share with me their experiences and stories.
I had already been watching with interest the way that COVID-19 was changing society’s burial rituals even before I knew my Dad was in the hospital. Sadly, he was not the first person we would mourn during this pandemic time. So our family had already been involved in this question of “physically distanced funerals.”
In so many ways the COVID reality, has changed even this sacred experience. And why not? It has changed everything else in our society. Of course, it would change the way we remember and honor those we love, especially with so many dying from the disease itself.
There have been a number of articles written on the subject over the last few months. In The New Yorker, Lauren Collins writes of losing her father this year, “The most unexpected thing for me about my father’s death, in a turbulent moment and at a great remove, is that he has never seemed more alive. Through the eyes of others, I see him so clearly.”
I wanted to understand how can we leverage digital platforms that seem distant or removed – at a time when we most crave connection and human warmth.
It is a societal instinct to say goodbye. We need it. Closure helps heal. And it becomes a teaching and comforting moment. While I was trying to keep things together in the absence of a funeral or while awaiting a 2021 memorial service, our digital reality helped bridge the distance. People heard the news of my Dad’s passing and found ways to reach out to my Mom, my siblings, and to me. Social media in some ways redeemed itself for all the evils that were being discussed in the media during this period. Digital platforms were allowing us to sit – virtually – in each other’s living rooms and remember and comfort.
“You are now part of a very unwanted but important alumni group,” one friend wrote. “Nobody wants to lose an immediate family member. But we do. And we find ways to come together. You are one of us now.”
That last phrase, “You are one of us now” hit me like a truck. It was not ominous or threatening, but instead comforting, reminding me that there are people who have already gone ahead of me and who knew this path.
I also became interested in learning from people who found the online memorial service to have some positive aspects. One of the benefits of a web-based funeral, according to some, is that you get to see everyone’s hurt and grief. It helps to process – giving an equal perspective to everyone who participates. When you’re in the pews, you may only see the back of bowed heads. On Zoom, you see the impact your loved one had on the faces of those who will miss them.
I definitely experienced this sensation as my family gathered virtually on Zoom or FaceTime in the hours and days following my father’s passing. Looking into each other’s eyes made some things comforing. But looking into the computer screen also amplified the absence of the man who wasn’t there. My Dad was missing from the videoconference. And it hurt.
On the flip side of this experience – the absence of the funeral meeting with all the important trappings of hugs of support or tears and comforting hands – there were new channels of engagement that emerged. I was surprised by how many people found ways to reach out in our virtual environment to talk and share about my Dad. They needed me to tell a story about my father. They want to share that small (or large, as was the case with my Dad) service that he afforded them. They wanted someone to carry that memory with them. It wasn’t just to share or offer a condolsnce TO me. It was to mourn WITH me.
I learned – via Zoom call or Facebook messenger or Instagram post or text message – that mourners become a receptacle for gratitude. You become a collector of moments. In our digital era, these moments are expressed and memorialized in digital snapshots. The majority of the letters were emailed. The majority of messages were online. All of them welcome and gracious.
When a time-honored tradition is altered by a pandemic or war or natural disaster, there will be unwelcome changes. After all, most of these traditions are steeped in spiritual traditions and are viscerally important religious rites. As always, in some ways the ritual suffers, but in many other ways it is refreshed. By shaking us out of the familiar routine, we give this sacred moment more attention and, by extension, the deceased more respect.
I look forward to the chance we’ll have in 2021 to gather and remember my Dad. And I support my mother’s decision to postpone the ceremony. Just as we support those who are gathering digitally or hosting online funerals.
In 2021 there are people I want to hug, things I want to say, and faces I long to see. I have a pile of thank you notes to write. Some I would like to deliver personally. But in the meantime, our shift to a digital reality has reminded me of the humanity of many.
COVID-19 is forcing people to shift the way they do one of the most sacred things they will ever be asked to do – to bury their dead. Maintaining the most important aspects of those rituals still depends on us. No pandemic or platform will ever change that. ‘
But for now I am grateful for the ways we have to connect and that remind us of the important things. That love wins. That families can be forever. And that we are at our very best when we remember we are all connected-be it in person or virtually.
Dad would love that.
