A dignified life should precede every burial – but in the course of the Corona measures this was often made impossible. In an emotional open letter, a undertaker and eulogy speaker calls for reappraisal. She had to experience first-hand what was done to people during the so-called pandemic. From home residents who went on hunger strike and died out of sheer loneliness and despair, to funerals under the most inhumane conditions, which made the grieving work even more difficult for the bereaved: your report illustrates the scope of the Corona crimes.
In the following you can read the report of the undertaker Lena (via Neue-Medien-Portal.eu; emphasis by Report24):
Dear colleagues, doctors, nursing staff, paramedics and all other people who are also employed in healthcare.
Our job in the funeral industry is also to give the dead a voice. First and foremost, of course, to accompany relatives and in the best possible way. But I can’t help but reflect on the challenges we’ve had to deal with over the past two years. First of all, as undertakers, we were classified as not systemically important during the 1st and 2nd lockdown. Some of you can certainly still remember this sometimes turbulent time. As undertakers, we were simply forgotten. At least that was what I said when I called the State Department. Employees have had to struggle to place their children in emergency care to be able to work. I don’t need to explain further that the home office in the funeral industry is not feasible for us. Reconsidering this decision was a matter close to my heart and so, in desperation, I turned to the radio. With success, because the decision was corrected a short time later and we were then classified as systemically important. Nevertheless, we were forgotten again during the 2nd lockdown. Now you can certainly quickly forget such wrong decisions and don’t have to be resentful. But when dealing with the relatives, I would like to point out a few events that have to be processed and should not be swept under the table. My primary concern here is the bereaved.
Because this incision, which caused too much suffering through numerous regulations and prohibitions, affected us all. We all know what unprocessed grief, or active grief work that is not done, can do. So I would like to start and at least get the stone rolling for our industry. I recently gave a speech about a 96-year-old woman who had lost a lot due to the ban on visits and contacts and weeks of quarantine. (The family wrote this down in their bullet points, which I used as a preparation for the eulogy). This situation caused her health to deteriorate in a very short time. A stroke of fate of many, as we now know.
I immediately remembered the pick-ups from the care facilities. Apart from the procedure of testing in the entrance area, which sometimes happened 3 times at night, namely again with each operation, as well as the precautionary measures taken to protect against infection, such as wearing an anti-disease suit. Not that it’s already depressing when you walk through the corridors of the facilities with the coffin. Always put yourself in the position of the residents, who know full well that their stay will end the same way one day.
Relatives were not even allowed to say goodbye, nor were they allowed to accompany the dying process, although this was permitted under the Corona Protection Ordinance. The mourning talks were characterized by a kind of powerlessness and also anger at the fact that these decisions were sometimes made by the institutions on their own initiative. The resulting desperation of the relatives exploded and presented us with serious challenges. On the one hand, there was the Infection Protection Act, which had to be observed, which we have always been dealing with. On the other hand, there were the regulations, which changed within a very short time, sometimes even daily, and had to be readjusted. Forget at
Non-compliance with the penalties, the threat of fines and other violations remained the fear, which increased immeasurably every day. Suicide was also a topic at the time, but it was reported on rather sparsely.
The farewell at the open coffin was at least one way to experience a little culture of mourning. Luckily there was a quick decision from our health department that laying out at the open coffin was also allowed for C – deceased. Because here, too, it came out in conversation with the relatives that they were told that it was fundamentally forbidden.
But it wasn’t just the contact between the home residents and their relatives, but also the contact and mutual interaction within the care facility. Behind closed doors I heard a pitiful whimpering and knocking, a call for the nurse, the only human contact at the time. Eating meals together was prohibited. Activities that provided variety and watching TV in the common area were now prohibited, as were family visits. The residents had their meals brought to their rooms. It was a little spooky to be honest. A relative told me that his mother, who had dementia, often cried on the phone. She wanted to know why her son doesn’t visit her anymore and whether he doesn’t like her anymore. He tried to explain to her several times on the phone that the pandemic does not allow visits to be made on weekends. She kept asking him when he was coming and just didn’t understand. The mother of our relative stopped eating in her desperation and after 8 weeks was ready to go to the other side of the road because she lacked the strength to live. When she died he was allowed to visit her.
It was the same in the clinics. When I was picked up, my colleague was standing in front of the door of the room where his father was a patient. He should bring him a bag of fresh clothes when he gets the chance. He only asked the nurse for 5 minutes so that they could both see each other from the door. The answer was no. In front of the locked door, which separated him from his father only a few moments. With the knowledge that the father had been lying in this room for months, with dwindling will to live and after an unsuccessful hip operation, he was denied a visit. After 4 months, on my colleague’s father’s birthday, they were allowed to see him again for the first time. Within a very short time he recovered, regained his old strength, according to the circumstances, and recovered so much that he was able to be released soon afterwards. He said himself when he got home: “A few more days and I would have given up”.
I could go on like this forever and I just want to make it clear what the measures have done to many people and what a burden we still have to absorb today.
In addition, for months funeral services could only take place outside and in the open air, the pastor no longer went to house calls, even during the preliminary talk for the speech, the telephone had to be sufficient. The consequences followed promptly. Here at least more clearly, due to a significant departure from the church in the last two years. Churches have been closed for a long time. A dignified funeral under these conditions was really a mammoth task. To give a speech outside in front of the locked funeral hall, in the snow, wet and cold, for me as a speaker it was really cruel.
The music remained on tape, and the speech was recorded in advance and played back as an audio book, which was the only way to create an acceptable framework. But compared to a trumpeter or the wind group, which were also forbidden, as well as the funeral coffee that followed, which was cancelled, it was simply impersonal, especially in rural areas. 10 relatives were allowed at a funeral service, which under other circumstances counted far more than hundreds of participants, because the deceased was so popular and well known. A lonely widow remained, who was otherwise carried through this difficult time with a silent handshake, an empathetic hug, home visits and sympathy in the form of personal accompaniment and participation in the last escort.
I will never be able to forget the 2 or 3 G regulations, where, before the funeral, based on the protection ordinance, the grieving daughter (23) was asked to go to a test center immediately before the funeral service so that she was allowed to attend the funeral at all . In our Corona Protection Ordinance it was written that compliance with contact tracing is solely the task of the organizing relative. This meant going to a testing center first, praying and pleading for a negative result. To ask the participants for their name and address before entering the hall/church, to ask them to sign in and to ask if they are one of the 3 G’s. Controlling the contact tracing, the entry in the list, disguised as a condolence folder, was of course largely passed on to the undertaker in handing over the responsibility.
Looking at faces that remain hidden behind a mask, keeping an eye out to see whether the speech is getting through, which you could otherwise tell from facial expressions and gestures alone. It is more than unhygienic that you still wore this mask, which was soaked with tears, to go shopping in the supermarket in the afternoon.
Some flower shops did not survive this time, they were not among the groceries of everyday use. Even restaurants are so ruined today that they are about to close. All of these are things that will also affect our mourning culture in the future, because not everything can be done digitally. Added to this is inflation, which is now noticeably affecting us undertakers step by step. Suppliers with new price lists within a few weeks. Obituaries and obituaries also corrected upwards. Funeral hall fees, cemetery fees are becoming more expensive and the crematoria have also increased. The explanation in almost all letters at the moment is that because of the energy crisis we are forced… So the next crisis and we haven’t even really recovered from the first one. There are already relatives who can no longer pay their bills, ask for payment in installments or even ask for a partial termination of the pension contract. A contract that they actually signed for themselves, but the sum is now needed to have their mother buried with dignity. Nursing home places are more expensive than ever, there is no more money to pay for a funeral, and the savings have already been used up to pay the rent.
This article was written from the bottom of my heart and should only contribute without judgment to the fact that before every dignified burial there is a dignified life.
Thanks for your attention
Jana
certified undertaker and funeral speaker