What You Need To Know (but probably didn’t) About Covid Grief
A couple weeks into quarantine, I got a phone call from my brother. I heard that dreaded tone in his voice, reflexively caught my breath, and steadied myself as he cut to the chase: “Dad is sick; I think he needs a Covid test.”
My father bestowed an ever-evolving nickname on me: Little Miss Muffet — you know, the one who sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey. As I got older, he shortened it to Miss Muffet, which eventually became Muffin or, simply, Muff. That changing name mirrored years of adjusting our father-daughter bond as I became a young woman. Throughout our changing relationship and all my mistakes and shortcomings, one thing remained true: my father loved me unconditionally.
When I became an adult, I tried my best to return that love in tangible ways. I could never repay my dad and mom for the phenomenal childhood they gifted me. But I still wanted to offer advice and support whenever I could (and whenever they would let me…because I was still their child!).
So when coronavirus lockdown hit, I regularly called my parents much like every other GenXer and Millennial I know. My brother and I checked in often to make sure they had supplies to weather the epidemiological storm — even though we lived several states away. I assumed the pandemic would pass us by. I had no reason to think otherwise.
My father was diagnosed with Covid-19 on March 28.
Those subsequent days were a slow-motion nightmare of non-stop phone calls with doctors and nurses at the Covid-19 ICU. My mom, brother and I learned to hope for good news while steadying ourselves for a steady stream of new complications. We sought so much advice from friends in the medical profession that my dad’s nurses thought we were medical doctors ourselves. We tracked my father’s hospital updates in a spreadsheet that included vital signs, percentage of mechanized oxygen, blood gas read-outs, chest x-ray descriptions, and prescription dosages. We dove in deeper, educating ourselves about each new devastating stage: pneumonia, intubation, a ventilator, kidney failure, and, ultimately, a massive and irreversible stroke.
Through the bleary haze of my anxiety-fueled insomnia, I helplessly watched him get worse. I began to prepare for the increasing inevitability of losing him.
Three weeks after the diagnosis, on April 17, my father died.
I knew the immediate grief process would be uniquely lonely. I knew I’d have to forgo a proper funeral for my loving, humble, hardworking dad. I knew Covid-19 families were unable to hold their beloved’s hand as they transitioned from this world. I am forever grateful for Becca, a nurse who stayed by my father’s side — well beyond her shift — so he didn’t die alone.
I wasn’t surprised that the disjointed and distanced death process caused me to do some bizarre things. I asked the attending physician to email a picture of the CAT-scan that showed my dad’s brain after his stroke. I needed to see the actual film in order to reconcile what the doctor told me on the phone. I asked the funeral director to email photos of my father in his casket. My 14-day quarantine prevented me from going to the funeral home to see his body before they closed the casket. I suspect my brain needed visual confirmation to accept that he actually died.
I knew I’d have to wear a mask at our graveside burial service with only me, my brother and my mom in attendance. I knew we’d be unable to hug each other as we laid three white roses on top of his grave and sang his favorite hymn.
What I did not anticipate is the struggle to negotiate grief amidst inescapable reminders of the thing that literally killed my father. If dad passed away from cancer or heart disease, I would be equally devastated at the loss. But maybe I could get a break from thinking about how he died. Not with Covid — it’s still everywhere. It influences what we do every day. The daily onslaught wears me down in a way that’s almost indescribable.
Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a mild case of Meniere’s Disease. Tinnitus, commonly known as ‘ringing in the ears’, is among its manageable symptoms. Many of us have experienced that dull hum, buzz or low piercing sound in our ears from time to time. The more you will yourself not to focus on it, the louder it seems to become…until you can’t not hear it. It transforms from a dull hum into a cacophony. And no one else can hear that internal noise except you. You simply watch everyone else go about their day while your ears ring mercilessly.
That’s how covid-19 grief feels. The things that remind me of how my father died constantly buzz in my ears. The symbolic reminders are omnipresent for me, but simultaneously fly underneath everyone else’s radar.
I am confronted with the thing that took my dad’s life when I put on a mask to go grocery shopping, since Covid is the reason for my mask. I help our daughter organize virtual school and virtual summer camps because Covid keeps her at home. I seek relief in a mindless, escapist television show — but every other commercial has a Covid spin. I am on dozens of Zoom meetings and virtual happy hours because of Covid.
I cannot turn on the news without getting an update on the escalating number of Covid deaths, vaccine development, or the disproportionate impact on my Black community. And perhaps the most painful reminder: every anti-masker or Covid-denier picks at the scab of my barely-formed grief.
Bottom line: the ubiquitous Covid-19 reminders are emotionally exhausting. And triggering. And constant. How do I move beyond the trauma of losing my father when my life, and the lives of everyone around me, is dictated by the very thing that killed him?
I’ve begun to research historical parallels as I search for my own answers and healing. How did loved ones of World War II victims process their grief when the war — food rations, patriotic commercials, constant death — surrounded them every day? How did those who lost family in the September 11th attacks quiet the ringing in their ears when the entire country talked of nothing else for months? I haven’t figured it out yet. But knowing that millions of others have survived similar stages of ubiquitous public grief gives me hope.
I still believe in public health restrictions and social distancing recommendations even though I know they’ll remind me of the reason my dad died every day, multiple times a day — for months on end. It’s about the greater good and not just what’s emotionally convenient for me.
But on behalf of the hundreds of thousands who’ve lost someone to Covid-19, please know this: a mask is often not just a mask to us. A Zoom call carries more weight than you might think. That meme about how quarantine hair is an entire struggle (and trust me, I can relate!) just might land differently for your friend who lost someone to Covid.
I don’t expect people to walk on eggshells around me and never mention the new C-word. That’s impossible. But our nation has yet to reckon with the messy and complex grief process for Covid victims’ loved ones. You might think we are slogging through this never-ending pandemic just like you are. Grief is grief, right? But, odds are, we are not okay.
So, please, be gentle with us. It’s more complicated than you realize.
