Talk about death: Will COVID-19 change the way we grieve?
Dr Jane Booth & Rev. Sarah Schofield
As a society we find it difficult to talk about death, despite the fact that death, dying and bereavement affect us all; death is a unifying element of life. However, death has become increasingly professionalised and medicalised. In other words, the responsibility to deal with death and the dying has been devolved to health and social care workers and other professionals. This serves to diminish the normality — and inclusivity — of death which ‘goes on in every community, every day, this very moment’ (Kellehear, 2012: viii). As a result caring for the dead and dying have moved away from friends, families and communities; weakening more intimate caring practices and the kind of bereavement support that could be more sensitively delivered. Maybe then, it is not surprising that we rarely speak about death and dying, often lacking the experience, language and confidence to do so. However, not being able to talk about the death of our loved ones can lead to mental health issues and other negative outcomes. Whilst talking about death can enable “better deaths” that aids both the family and patient.
As we wake up to another day of COVID-19, helping people talk about — and deal with — death is especially poignant. With the death rate rising in the UK — and across the world — as a result of COVID-19, people may not only find themselves affected directly by the loss of a loved one, but also having to engage with the intense media attention about the threat of death that this virus poses. The pandemic has thrown up many challenges for our communities, and ourselves as mortal human beings.
Grief is a universal human experience; ways of marking loss whether that be of a harvest, a homeland or a fellow human have evolved in rich and varied ways linked by tropes recognisable across societies. Throughout history and across cultures there has been an expectation that these acts of remembrance will be communal, tactile and based on recognisable rituals and habits that suggest continuity with previous generations.
Nothing has disrupted the rituals and habits of remembrance for UK residents in such a fast and far reaching way as COVID-19. The regulations vary in fine detail but in essence, at the height of lockdown, access to individuals by their loved ones in their final hours was limited to one person or entirely forbidden. Rites of cultural and religious significance to both the dying and the bereaved may have not been performed or were performed by a chaplain, previously unknown to the person and their loved ones. Funerals were transformed beyond measure; places of worship were closed, crematoria and cemetery committals restricted to between 6 and 10 mourners. Mourners sat or stood two metres apart. Strict application of the rules meaning members of the same household must also distance. Wakes, opening one’s home (in some cases for days) before and after a funeral, and most of the informal acts of solidarity with the bereaved, going out for a coffee, helping someone clear a house, sharing a meal were suspended. Even the loosening restrictions has not returned us to ‘normal’ formal or informal modes of grief.
Rites and activities for people unable to attend a funeral are not a new thing, the Society of St Francis, for example, already had liturgies for use by people unable to attend a funeral but these were in essence mini funeral rites without a body, services designed for two people at the least rather than individuals sitting alone.
Memorial services after a funeral, visiting a place of worship to offer special prayers or light a candle, spending quiet time in a place of emotional significance have also played a part of the pattern of grief for a long time, but usually they are the supporting acts, the funeral is seen as the main event. This will need to change, a recent calculation by Sandra Millar, Life Events advisor to the Church of England, suggests there could be ‘anything upwards of an 80% decrease in attendance for many funerals. It is a big impact — it doesn’t help the close family either, as often a person’s life is given significance in the number attending. How often do we have conversations that say ‘ it was lovely that there were over 100 at x’s funeral’ or I was surprised at how many turned up’’ (personal email to one of the authors)
Many people, whether religious or not, believe that once dead a person has passed beyond pain, however there remains a sense of duty owed by the living to the dead person . The living often find their own wellbeing by ‘doing right’ by their deceased loved one but COVID-19 has entirely disrupted the traditional way of doing things ‘the right way’. If a ‘good send off’ before COVID-19 was a funeral bursting with people, what is it now? If we cannot do ‘what she would have wanted’ what can we do?
We face two challenges, repairing the damage created by this current experience of bereavement during lockdown and exploring what we have in our old traditions and new practices that can help us in a socially distanced future. These conversations need to begin now; funerals are vital part of healthy grief and whilst it is impossible to accurately predict the impact of delayed and disrupted grieving we can make some reasonable guesses that institutions such as universities will experience significant increases in mental and physical ill health.
Returning to the core responses to grief and loss mentioned earlier, activities that are communal, tactile and recognisable there follows some very brief reflections on new things which should be taken forward.
Online mourning, already practised with online books of condolence, virtual candle lighting has rapidly expanded into live streaming funerals. Celebrants addressing the congregation on Zoom as warmly as those in the room. This has expanded access to mourning rituals enabling grieving families to connect globally, allowing easier access for people unable to travel, and involving children in a less formal way than attending a ceremony. This recognisable act of mourning can hopefully continue after lockdown as it extends access to rituals and a sense of community. Work will need to be done to prevent online mourners becoming overlooked once mourners return to physical gatherings in large numbers.
The tactile elements of the rituals and habits of grief remain the hardest to replicate but COVID-19 has given a unique opportunity to audit what these actually are rather than what we think they are. Being forbidden almost all tactile interaction at the moment of loss makes us realise what is significant beyond measure. There are obvious examples, the hug, holding the hand of a mourner or dying person but amongst the less obvious are: the importance of the dispersal of possessions whether that is the need to remove a large item that is a painful reminder or a desire to gift an item to an individual or charity, running physical errands for bereaved friends, visiting a place of significance as a group. Reordering of physical space, acts of service, and secular and spiritual pilgrimage, essential elements in the physical demonstration that a grief is both acknowledged and shared and have been highlighted by their absence. We need to recognise the importance of what is being left undone and explore how it can be restarted in our new context.
It is clear, then, that this pandemic is having, and will continue to have for some time, a considerable impact on our society. Whether it will lead to people feeling able to talk about death more easily and accept it as a “normal” part of the life course, is hard to say. But certainly this is something we, as a society, need to do. Reflecting this, Kellehear’s idea of a “Compassionate City” promotes the idea that communities should embrace ‘the care of the dying’ and ‘those living with loss’. For drawing on personal experience of loss is a powerful way of both healing the self, improving wellbeing, as well as strengthening the capacity of the community to care. This depends on friends and family having the ability, confidence and language to have those conversations. Therefore breaking down cultural taboos that would enable this is critical. The Death Café movement has been part of this process.
Targeting young people — equipping them with the confidence, interpersonal skills and language to talk about death, dying and bereavement — could not only break down those taboos but also enhance the resilience of this emerging generation to deal with — and talk about — death. Indeed, bereavement for young people is complicated by social and cultural processes that discourage “everyday” conversations about death, dying and bereavement, and privileges the adult experience of grief over that of the young person (Holland, 2001; Ribbens McCarthy, 2007). But we know that the exclusion of young people from these conversations is implicated in future depression, risk-taking behaviour, and poor educational attainment (Aynsley-Green, 2017). Therefore, starting conversations early in life could buttress young people’s future wellbeing when faced with bereavement and indeed their own mortality.
Drawing on experience from a project called “Dying to Talk” (a collaborative project between Dr Jane Booth at the University of Wolverhampton and Drs Karina Croucher and Ellie Bryant at the University of Bradford, together with voluntary organisations in Bradford: Bradford Bereavement Support, Child Bereavement UK, MYMUP and Speaker’s Corner) it is apparent that young people can be encouraged to talk about death, dying and bereavement. The Dying to Talk project aimed to build resilience in young people around the topic of death. The project used archaeological artefacts, and looked at different funereal practices over time and culture, to start those conversations with young people, encouraging them to think how important it is for “the living” to care for “the dead”. In addition, by allowing a group of young people to take charge of project outputs (running a Death Café, filming a video and designing creative activities such as designing their own coffin!) we found that young people were capable of dealing honestly and responsibly with this sensitive subject. This is heartening. For in the age of COVID-19, it is more imperative than ever that we have those conversations!
Dedicated to the staff and students of the University of Wolverhampton whose personal bereavement journeys have informed our thinking.
If this blog has raised any issues for you, support resources are available here: https://www.cruse.org.uk/get-help/coronavirus-dealing-bereavement-and-grief
