This is a year filled with loss – livelihoods, opportunities, plans – but some losses are much more important. People are still dying from Covid-19 every day. It must be an extraordinary kind of trauma to lose a loved one to Covid-19, and be reminded of their cause of death at every juncture, in every newspaper, on every radio station, and in every interaction. As a society, we are going to have to do a lot of work and invest a lot of time in easing people’s pain. I’m confused as to how that seems to be largely missing from the broader discourse right now.
When the Government was spending so much money – rightly so – on essentially firefighting during the pandemic, it is quite extraordinary that a radical package of free therapeutic supports for all of those who are Covid-bereaved was not put in place.
Yes, some supports are available, in particular supports the Irish Hospice Foundation runs. Yet even its bereavement support line runs for just three hours a day, five days a week. Why was this not bolstered with a large amount of extra funding and resources?
The Irish Hospice Foundation’s pre-budget submission this year is well worth a read. It contains frank assessments of the reality of the impact of bereavement at an individual and societal level: “There is also a need to look at the possible effects of delayed or disenfranchised grief individually, which have yet to be evaluated … We also believe dying, death and bereavement are everyone’s business. This means a population-wide, whole society response is required.”
In circumstances of great trauma and loss, it is not enough to tell people that support is out there, or to hand them a leaflet. At the time of bereavement, most people simply do not have the capacity to summon or act on their own initiative to avail of supports. Many people who lost loved ones to Covid-19 may have never engaged with counselling or psychotherapy before. People are traumatised, not just by a loved one dying, but in many cases the almost unthinkable circumstances of those deaths, the cruel and torturous ways in which people witnessed their loved ones dying, particularly those who died in nursing homes, and how that grief was compounded by the surreal nature of how funerals were carried out, which, now that we know more, seems to have been over the top.
Being able to run around the shops buying presents or go to a restaurant with friends is very trivial in context
A national week of mourning and remembrance is essential, but it also has to be followed up with real interventions and supports. I would like to think, that at a time of great suffering, families were visited by community counsellors who very clearly laid out to them the necessity and availability of a wide range of therapeutic supports, and that people were guided helpfully and firmly towards engaging with those. From my conversations with friends who lost loved ones to Covid, that didn’t happen. That national programme was not created and it is still not in place.
Fantasy about Christmas
What we have instead, as the year draws to a close, is a fantasy about Christmas. The media narrative around “saving” Christmas was ridiculous. Christmas happens, and everyone’s experience of it is different. It is much handier to depict a Miracle on 34th Street version of Christmas than engage with the hardship that Christmas creates for many – not just financial, but how it often amplifies existing stresses in families, and how it can be a truly torrid time where grief and bereavement resurface, this year more than ever.
In Ireland, we often talk about the importance of facing up to the traumas of the past. Yet it is clear that we are very capable of ignoring the raw traumas of the present.
The focus on the moving parts of the “festive” season, as a time of consumerism and socialising, is to the detriment of the much more urgent need to ensure supports are in place for those who lost people to Covid, and also those who lost loved ones not to Covid, but whose opportunity to mark their deaths in a manner that offered closure was painfully hampered by the context of the pandemic. Being able to run around the shops buying presents or go to a restaurant with some friends may be a great relief to some, but it is also very trivial in context.
It must also be incredibly bittersweet for the families and friends of those who died from Covid, to now see the celebrations and optimism surrounding progress made with vaccines. Grief and loss have in some ways been glossed over. Those who want to simply “move on” and “get back to normal” are privileged enough to do so.
This Christmas, if we really want to make it “meaningful”, we need to centre on the families and friends of those who were lost, and the memories of the people themselves who died, who lived full lives, and who were loved. Nothing compares to that ultimate sacrifice. I hope that those who lost loved ones understand how deeply their grief is felt. But in the current discourse, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them feel that such a sentiment is sorely lacking.