Grief in the time of Coronavirus

Grief makes a painfully strange bedfellow at the best of times, but in the midst of a global pandemic, a hard time is compounded by the chaos of society. Normally, a death (whether at home, at hospital, a nursing home, or otherwise) sets off a somewhat seamless chain reaction. The death occurs, if you aren’t there for it, you will be knocked on your knees as the breath is sucked out of your body when you receive ‘the call.’ You may already be familiar with that call- the one where someone sounds oddly normal, yet their voice is shaping words that can’t seem to translate through the phone line. Gradually, the words string together to form a sentence- “I am so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your father in law just died in the nurses’ arms.” Insert family member and cause of death here. You thank them after asking what time it happened (why? why is it so ingrained in my personality to thank people for bad news?) and hang up with a numb face and ringing ears. The world stops. Your heart pounds so hard that it feels like it might stop too. Then it becomes your turn to share the news. After that, it would be usual for friends and family to call, text, drop by and give out hugs. Meal trains and memorials are usually arranged. The whirl of end-of-life activities has only just begun and usually the crowd helps alleviate the silence. There is a vast, wide, and wild silence where your loved one once was, and all you can see is the hole left behind. With Coronavirus, that silence has become unimaginably vast.