Here is the first in this new series:
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| Andrew and Leta MacDiarmid, from Leta's Facebook profile picture |
On March 22, the province of Nova Scotia declared a state of
emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Along with requirements for the
self-isolation of travellers and enforcement of physical distancing, the
province said no one could gather in groups of more than five.
So what happens when someone dies? One of the most challenging
aspects of this shutdown is the fact we can’t have funerals.
Andrew MacDiarmid is a second-generation funeral director
who lives at the funeral home in Oxford with his wife, Leta, and their two
daughters, Rachel, 12, and Marlee, 8. His family operates funeral homes in
Oxford, Pugwash, Wentworth, and Tatamagouche, on the north shore of Nova Scotia,
so when he talks about his work, he speaks in terms of “we”.
Their last public service was March 15.
“We have to keep explaining to people why we can’t do
funerals,” he says about following the rules set by the province. “We’re not
dealing with deaths from the actual virus; we’re just trying to deal with daily
business. We’re trying to help folks in a time that can be hard enough, but
when you take away the interaction and the one-on-one and the community
support, it’s really difficult.”
What’s worse, he says, is that even if the family knows they
have to wait for the restrictions to be lifted in order to have a service, they
can’t set a date for that. They can’t even plan for July, and even then, Andrew
knows the restrictions won’t be lifted all at once.
So his biggest concern is that by the time people are
allowed to gather in large groups again, they will have lost the energy and the
will to have a service, “even though they probably should,” he adds.
He feels that way because the purpose of funerals is
“acknowledgement” – of the death of a loved one, of the life lived, of those
left behind to mourn and remember. We all need the opportunity to gather with
family and friends in order to acknowledge the life that is over and to
acknowledge our loss.
The postponement of funerals, however, doesn’t mean funeral
service stops. Andrew considers his business an essential service.
“This is public health,” he says. “The ‘essential service’
part of the funeral home is – someone dies, the body has to go somewhere.”
Removals are simply taking a body from its place of death to
the funeral home. Andrew and his staff have changed almost all the ways they do
removals from nursing homes, hospitals and residences. What hasn’t changed is
that they still do them at any time of the day or night.
“When we go into a nursing home, we wear masks to ensure we
don’t bring the virus into the facility,” he says, “and our departure is as
low-key as possible. All bodies are shrouded in plastic now, because we’re
following the WHO [World Health Organization] guidelines; that will probably be
the norm from now on.”
The procedure is the same for removals at hospitals, but now
instead of going to the room, with the opportunity to reassure the family,
Andrew and his staff now go to the morgue where the body is waiting.
He says removals from houses are trickier because there
can’t be more than five people in the residence at one time, and the funeral
home sends two people on a removal.
“It seems odd at two thirty in the morning to ask people to
leave when we arrive,” he says, “but once you explain it, they understand. It’s
cumbersome. The whole thing is cumbersome.”
He admits the hardest part, at least for him, is not wearing
a suit.
“We’re dressing casually because there’s no dry cleaning right
now, and we don’t need to be wearing the same suit to do removals in different
facilities. It’s just common sense.”
Andrew recognizes that people are worried about how their
loved one’s body will be taken care of for weeks, even months. Now, instead of
having a funeral, the body, in its casket, goes into a holding room at one of
the funeral homes that is supervised 24/7.
If the body is cremated, MacDiarmid’s provides that service
at the funeral home in Oxford, “so we’re in charge of the whole process,”
Andrew says. The difference now, he’s noticed, is that people are requesting
the urn be brought to them, instead of getting the funeral home to hold onto it
until the service.
“People want to have the cremated remains because they just
don’t know when this shutdown is going to end.”
He’s grateful to still be open for people, and proud of his
staff for operating as normally as possible. “They’ve all said they’ll do
whatever they can to help people.”
But when you’re in the business of assisting families with a
death, and with the process of arrangements, and mourning, he says “it’s
disappointing when you’re talking to people, knowing they can’t move through
this as quickly as they’d like to.”
Andrew’s advice for everyone wondering how to cope with death
during this quarantine? Pick up the phone.
“One thing I’m noticing that people appreciate – and there doesn’t
have to be a death in the family anymore to make this important – is a phone
call,” he says. “Zoom gatherings, Facebook likes and comments, and texting are
great, but there’s something about hearing somebody’s voice and having that
conversation that really seems to help people. It’s an easy thing for everyone
to do, and it’s not like we’re doing anything else.”
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