In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak that has taken more than 1,600 lives in Illinois’ Cook County in seven weeks, it feels like a blessing that I was able to attend my grandmother Rosie Lee’s funeral surrounded by family and friends before social distancing became a grim reality.
At her funeral on March 6 — two weeks before the state’s stay-at-home order went into effect — I had the chance to reconnect with relatives I hadn’t seen or spoken with in years, making plans for our first family reunion in more than a decade. The passing of such a powerful presence in my life was made much easier by the support of my big extended family.
The families affected by COVID-19 haven’t been as lucky. The outbreak, which has been devastating to the area’s African American communities, has also been hugely disruptive to our funeral traditions.
Friends and family traveling from near and far to celebrate and console is a hallmark of African American funerals. The tradition was strengthened after the end of slavery, reconnecting families splintered by forced separation and, then, later, the Great Migration. A 2016 article by Tiffany Stanley in The Atlantic said that after slavery and Jim Crow, when many lost their lives prematurely, “homegoings” offered black Americans the respect in death that they didn’t always receive in life.
Now, social distancing and stay-at-home orders have meant churches are closed to funeral services, while funeral homes and cemeteries strictly enforce the number of mourners allowed inside. At a recent burial at the Oak Woods Cemetery on Chicago’s South Side, only four members of a family were allowed inside its sprawling 183-acre grounds at a time.
Another despairing theme I’ve encountered repeatedly while interviewing families of COVID-19 victims is how many weren’t able to speak with their ailing loved ones before they died. Many died alone in intensive care units, with the lucky ones maybe able to say farewell by phone. Relatives aren’t allowed inside a quarantined area.
Linda Veasley-Payne, who lost her mother and grandmother to the virus days apart, said her last memory of her mother was seeing her rushed to a hospital. Eight days later, her mother was gone. “It has been really hard because when the ambulance took her on March 31, that’s the last time we saw her,” Veasley-Payne tearfully recalled.
Anthony McLaurin, whose mother Christine, 86, died in isolation from the virus at a suburban Chicago hospital on March 25, said the lack of a funeral devastated his large, grieving family that includes nine siblings, along with dozens of grandchildren.
Instead of having a large family funeral that would have allowed them to begin healing, Christine McLaurin was quietly cremated. “She was well-respected and loved. She meant everything to the family,” said McLaurin, 53. “All of our hearts are broken. Because of (COVID-19), you really can’t have a funeral and family get-togethers and you can’t do what you usually do when somebody passes.”
At the 73-year-old A.A. Rayner & Sons — one of the South Side’s oldest black funeral businesses — director Charles S. Childs Jr. said relatives of coronavirus victims are often themselves quarantined, creating another set of problems for organizing a solemn gathering that may include family members traveling from other states. Some families seek to stall funeral arrangements until after their self-imposed quarantine ends, while others are fearful of passing it to loved ones attending the memorial.
“It’s very nerve-wracking for family members who have lost somebody, who are told to stay home and are nervous about the possible spread to other family members,” Childs said. “Some families who are in quarantine are terribly shaken by this.”
The Rev. Marshall Hatch, who lost his older sister Rhoda Hatch on April 4, said social distancing has even changed small ways family members typically comfort one another. After receiving news of his sister’s death, Hatch recalled not being able to physically console his siblings as he broke the grim news.
“We can’t touch each other, we had to stand a distance apart,” Hatch recalled. “It was the most difficult time to be social distancing. People were crying, looking at each other, and during a time of prayer you can’t hold hands.”
Hatch’s family forewent a traditional funeral, opting instead for a drive to the cemetery. “In our family, we have that issue of people that can’t come out at all … and we can’t really have that many people in one spot,” he said. “Nobody can have that kind of closure that we’re accustomed to.”
Hatch said he worried that by not properly grieving, family members would suffer “trauma, the psychological and emotional trauma. In our family, we’ve had tensions that I’ve never seen before.”
To address these concerns, some operators, like the Doty Nash funeral home on the South Side, have begun hosting virtual services where relatives can watch via the internet.
That innovation recently helped the out-of-state relatives of one of its clients who opted to watch the funeral broadcast after officials in North Carolina informed them they would have to undergo a 14-day quarantine if they left the state.
“Family members from seven states tuned into that service, said Vera Hudson, co-owner of Doty Nash. “There’s so many news stories about people contracting this disease at a funeral or a church that people were happy to be with the family through the internet.”
Hudson said being able to view services online offers a compromise for relatives who may be worried about being exposed, but who seek the acceptance of death that a funeral can bring.
“If this were me or someone in my family … and I could not be at the funeral, I would feel cheated,” Hudson said. “We always say here that funerals are not for the dead, they’re for the living. They’re here to help you move on and grieve.”
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ABOUT THE WRITER
William “Will” Lee is a reporter at the Chicago Tribune.
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