No handshakes. No hugs. No gentle, reassuring pats or squeezes.
Perhaps in no other time in recent or even more distant history have funerals and burials been more devoid of the physical outreach and comfort so understandably linked with a badly-needed salve for grief.
Yet, that is the general, current state of affairs among gatherings for loved ones who have died in the age of the novel coronavirus. For now, anyway, all that literal and figurative closeness is a part of dearly departed traditions.
So, too, have circumstances changed, to some extent, with the age-old idea of walking into the funeral home itself to make arrangements for a family member who has died. Locally, at Myers-Reed Chapel and also at Hathaway-Myers Chapel, general manager Keith Boback is currently encouraging people to make arrangements by phone or online.
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The virtual planning feature is a new one that began being offered in March.
“As a precaution, we are trying our best to limit the number of people coming into the building,” Boback said.
Those two funeral homes are abiding by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended guidelines for safety to limit the spread of COVID-19: No more than 10 people gathered in the building, including even space in separate rooms. And that number thus far has included clergy and maybe a musician.
At Normal Funeral Home in Hope, owner Suzie Norman’s family has been serving the public since long before the last global health crisis during the 1918 and 1919 influenza outbreak that infected nearly a quarter of the world’s population. She mentioned that the grieving are, in a very real sense, now facing a double loss — the death of a loved one, and the lack of friends’ literal hands-on support or their encircling a family with on-the-scene consolation at a service.
That’s because full funerals are not being scheduled, though some relatives are scheduling public life celebrations months from now.
“It’s really an especially trying time for (grieving) families,” Norman said. “They don’t have enough time for proper closure.”
Columbus resident and former longtime funeral director Pat Myers understands. Facing the COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings, he held a private service for wife Mary at their home Wednesday. There, they had room for about 14 family members and eight guests, including neighbors and a few dear friends.
“I didn’t want to place the funeral home in jeopardy at all (over numbers),” Myers said. “So, we had what was like an old-fashioned Irish wake.”
And though he dearly wanted her service to be at Westside Community Church, he said Mary would have loved the home setting, right there in their living room.
“As it turned out, we were able to do some things that we probably wouldn’t have been able to do at the funeral home or the church,” Myers said.
At Barkes, Weaver and Glick Funeral Home and Crematory in Columbus, one sign of the pandemic is evident in the downtown chapel. Chairs are spaced at least 6 feet apart, as recommended by health officials for proper distancing to decrease the chance of infection.
And since mid-March, staff has been limiting the number of people during visitation, though 14 or 15 assembled very briefly maybe once, according to owner Rory Glick. He said he has not considered having relatives or friends rotate near the casket during visitations because that in itself could create challenges amid a limited time frame.
“I can imagine that someone could be disappointed and say, ‘I didn’t really get enough time to talk with the family,’” Glick said.
At graveside services at burial sites such as Garland Brook Cemetery, Glick once has allowed a few more than 10 people to gather, spread safely apart.
“Many of them have kind of stayed at a distance (from the grave),” he said.
He has livestreamed one brief, private service, with eight family members physically attending, since virus restrictions were instituted. Others such as Boback aim to begin offering livestreams within days.
The same goes for Nick Rittman, one of the owners at Jewell-Rittman Family Funeral Home in Columbus. And while he and the staff have adhered pretty strictly to visitation services of no more than 10 people, he acknowledged that funeral directors still have to meet face to face with relatives of the deceased at some point.
“So there is still some element of risk,” Rittman said.
And, especially when he already is friends with family members who make arrangements in person or who come to a visitation, he quickly explains the restriction situation for now, particularly if the person breaks down weeping upon arrival.
“I will tell them, ‘Normally, I would greet you with a hug,’” Rittman said. “’But because of the established protocol (for safety), I’m certainly not going to put you on the spot.’ And people have understood.”
And though families seem to understand restrictions on visitation or funeral numbers, Flanner Buchanan Funeral Home in Indianapolis is helping friends and others be more “present” at gatherings with special notecards they create with supporters’ messages of love. The cards, part of a program called Huggs From Home, are displayed at the time of the gathering.
Owner Bruce W. Buchanan explained the cards simply.
“This,” he said, “is a tangible way for people to show their love, care and support to those grieving — while at the same time keeping everyone safe.”
