Mourning the dead in the age of COVID

The other day I had a terrible night of very little sleep, dry heaving, and overall anxiety. I asked Shawn to drive me to the office so I could get mail and other work to bring home. We drove by a cemetery. It had COVID testing signs. I couldn't help but think it seemed so morbid, but at the same time I understood how convenient it really is as far as the long stretches of road.

When we made our way back, there were groups of people on the sidewalk along the fence outside the cemetery. I thought that perhaps they were there for testing. I thought that would be odd as far as distancing and the tendency to have people drive through to get tested.

As we got closer, I could see a tent with a casket ready to be lowered into the grave. There were six people seated in chairs well spaced apart. There was a minister of some sort standing at the casket. Then, we made the connection that all of the people were there for the graveside service. All of these people with no way to celebrate the life and mourn the loss with a gathering of family and friends other than at a distance, along a fence.

On this topic, my dad's cousin lost his sister-in-law the other day. His wife had to deal with not being able to hold a tradition funeral. She worked with her minister to do a tele-service. A conference call, basically. That has to be so difficult.

Even as a person who practices no religion, who is an atheist, I can acknowledge mourning the dead in some form or another. Celebrating a life and mourning a death is simply a part of our lives as human beings. Hopefully, soon, life will get back to a place in which people can honor the dead in they way they find best.

Connect the dots

This is going to start off a little weird, like not 100% fitting to the post as a whole.

When I was little, like early elementary school, I was pretty familiar with funerals. My dad's aunts and uncles had started to die. I remember his grandmother dying. She lived in a nursing home a good drive away. She had broken her hip and then developed pneumonia. So, I came to associate breaking a hip with dying. I didn't really understand the pneumonia part, but in my mind, the two were connected.

As I grew up, I discovered that a broken hip doesn't cause pneumonia. I started to understand the connection of the broken hip to pneumonia was only that being bed ridden caused fluid to build up. Being as old as my great-grandmother was, all of these things created the perfect storm for her to be unable to combat the pneumonia.

Pneumonia.

Come the late 80s. The AIDs epidemic was making its way through the world. Our little corner of the world was not safe. My dad's cousin was infected, full blown AIDs, not HIV. Then, that word, pneumonia, crept into our vocabulary again. When he passed away, AIDs, itself, was not the cause, was not listed as the cause of death. I learned that his death was from pneumonia. There was no broken hip involved in this case. There was AIDs and the suppression of his immune system. So, it was death by pneumonia due to the immunosuppression from AIDs.

COVID-19

Here we are, 2020 and a pandemic. I know pneumonia has played a part in this. I have a friend who was infected and ended up with pneumonia. She has recovered, thankfully. But, is it really surprising to have pneumonia rear it's ugly face?

I'm going to stop with the pneumonia talk, but not with the cause and effect piece of how health conditions can connect.

Governor Cuomo of New York recently adjusted the number of COVID related deaths causing an increase to the statistics. And.......then comes 45 and his COVID briefing. He gets in his expert over all the things mode and criticizes Cuomo. He implied it was an attempt to make things look worse than they are. Well Dr. 45, MD, shut the fuck up. A patient with COVID can have other health problems arise. So, yes, it is possible to have a fatal heart attack due to COVID. Let real doctors, not lackeys, but real doctors who are fighting along with all other types of medical personnel to educate the masses.

We live in the WTF-iest of times.

PANDEMIC. A board game. A very difficult board game involving viruses; infections; outbreaks; and epidemics. It can make you hate the colors red, yellow, blue, and black. We most definitely lost more games than we won. We failed the world...on a game board. At least for now, it was only on a game board.

COVID-19 has hit the world and hit it hard. It is horrifying. Watching the impact on Italy has been absolutely devastating. Then to see the U.S. in the line of fire from this virus has become heartbreaking. Part of the heartbreak comes from the person in the White House doing the absolute opposite of instilling confidence.

It is crazy the varying degrees of this. I have a friend who was infected. She was on oxygen, but didn't need to be hospitalized. She's on her road to recovery. Then, I have another friend who posted on Facebook a request for her mother-in-law who was diagnosed. The next day, she posted that her mother-in-law had died. Two extremes. That is how fucked up all of this is.

Things this has me thinking about are overwhelming at times. Like, my dad. He's 83 and not a healthy guy, see my posts back in August-October of last year. For him, there would not be a mild case. So I have the thoughts of him dying. I have those thoughts in general, but because of this, I think about it more. Things like, if he were to be infected and pass away, would I be able to travel. Probably not. It's likely that a funeral wouldn't be able to be held. I wouldn't be missing that. But, the idea of this happening and not being able to get to my mom is more than I can handle at times.

It's a strange time of heartbreaking and heartwarming moments existing along side of each other. Videos from medical personnel sharing the horror of their experiences just pains me to watch. The idea that you can drop your loved one at the hospital, not be able to go in with them, and then have them admitted, and possibly even die without you seeing them since the drop-off. Addicts relapsing and, if they do go for help, they, too, are alone. It's a terrible time for loneliness.

But, then there are the heartwarming things. People cheering and making signs outside of medical facilities. In NYC, every evening at 7 pm, the time for shift change at hospitals, New Yorkers cheer and clap and honk and make noise whatever other way they can to show appreciation. Watching the creative ways families and friends find to "be" with each other are great. Zoom probably never expected to have such a boon in business. Videos of families doing things like song and dance performances are blowing up on the internet. Various musicians are doing live mini-concerts on Facebook and/or Instagram Live. Necessity has been said to be the mother of invention many times before and I believe she is proving to be the mother of creativity.

So, stay home. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Save lives.