'I wasn't able to say goodbye': How coronavirus is impacting grief with funerals

Those were the words of Sharon Bottomley, 40, from Seacroft, who spoke to the Yorkshire Evening Post after attending the "cold and upsetting" service held for her grandma, who died at a care home in Hunslet after the Covid-19 isolation rules came into force.

Taking just a few minutes, and held on the driveway of the funeral home, the few mourners who had been allowed to attend then had to watch as she was "driven away".

This lack of "personal contact", both with the lost loved one and with relatives, will compound the grief "ten-fold", according to a bereavement counsellor in Leeds, who anticipates calls to their service will increase greatly over the coming months.

Gill, a support worker for Cruse Bereavement Care, said the service is recruiting now in readiness for what lies ahead.

"I think at the moment we're in the lull before the storm. We are looking at getting more people on board to do the training. I do think more calls are going to come through, definitely."

She said the current rules force those grieving to be cut off from their support network and unable even to "have a simple hug from a relative" at the loved one's funeral.

"That is so simple but huge at the moment."

She added: "You can't pick their clothes out, the rituals that people used to do - you can't do that now. That compounds the grief. It takes away the personal. It takes away the things we do for our loved ones. It's taken away because it has to be, because of the rules, but grief doesn't understand that."

Gill said she suspects a big issue, generally, will be that many are not able to be by their loved one's side in their last hours - with some never seen alive again after being taken away in an ambulance.

"That is taken out of our hands with this. That will be a big thing. We get the logic of it, we know it's the right thing but when it comes to personal pain and that grief, and 'I wasn't able to give my goodbye' - that is being taken away from someone. I think we will be listening to that quite a bit."

To contact Cruse, visit: https://www.cruse.org.uk/get-help.

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