Photo:Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ Gettyopinion.
‘The pain was
visceral yet I
was entirely
dislocated from
it. I was stuck
inside my
little screen’
Grief is hard in Covid. But we shall
emerge, says Sabrina Cohen-Hatton’m not sure why I was lying awake at 0545. Outside,
the light was starting to break, but it wasn’t particularly
bright. I was listening to the infrequent hum of cars as
they passed by the house. And then I heard it. The buzz
of a message landing in my phone.
It’s funny how devastating a binary code of zeros and ones can
be once they become text. I knew who it was. I knew what it was
going to say. I reached for my phone stared at the message icon.
For a moment, I was playing Schrodinger’s cat with the news I
knew was coming, and I knew I couldn’t stop.
My uncle had passed. We knew it was imminent and I had said
my goodbyes the day before. Under usual circumstances, I would
have been there to do so in person, but I was in lockdown and he
was in another country. So I did it by video call instead. It felt cold,
impersonal and the lack of intimacy is something that I found
deeply troubling.
If saying a virtual goodbye was a di�fi cult experience, being
at a funeral by videolink was by far the toughest. I come from
a Moroccan Jewish family. Culturally, there is a lot of outward
emotion at our funerals. And I mean a lot. People wail. People
scream. People hold each other tightly and express collective grief.
This was all unravelling in front of me in HD. I could catch bits of
conversation, glimpses of people falling to pieces. The pain was
visceral, yet I was entirely dislocated from it. I was stuck inside my
little screen. I couldn’t catch someone’s eye or give a reassuring
smile. I was a voyeur. I was unable to do anything other than watch
on and quietly weep into a phone screen, my dog gently resting
his head on my knee as my only comfort. That discombobulated
feeling was not something I’d anticipated, nor is it something I
ever wish to repeat.
A�ter Jewish funerals, the immediate family sits Shiva for
seven days. We sit on the �loor to symbolise the humility brought
about by loss. We don’t cook or clean or expend any e�fort on our
appearance. People visit, like an open house, bringing food to
ensure we focus solely on passing through our grief. We simply
sit, we talk, and we remember. It’s a cathartic part of the healing
process where we’re reminded of the people we have, not just the
hole le�t by the ones we’ve lost. It starts to paint the light back into
the shade. The absence of Shiva is just another cruel way that the
pandemic has interrupted grief.
The reality is there are thousands of people who lost loved
ones during the pandemic for whom “virtual grieving” was theonly option. The pain of not being able to be there to comfort someone
you love, not sharing their last moments a�ter a lifetime of memories
together, is utterly unimaginable to most. In comparison, I have a lot to
be grateful for.
None of us like to think about our own mortality – I know I would
rather blissfully live on under the assumption that it will be forever.
But the pandemic has brought the fragility of life that little bit closer
to us all.
We’d all like to imagine our own funerals being packed to the ra�ters
with people remembering us fondly. Funerals are very di�ferent right
now. Permitted numbers are much limited – now up to 30 in England- although only if the location has su�fi cient space to socially distance.
None of us would imagine that our closest kin would be watching on,
helplessly, via videolink.
As the world eventually returns to a form of normality, for some,
it will be without the person they were with the last time the world
was normal. That can make emerging from this epoch more
emotionally disorientating.
It’s not just the grief. Such sudden losses will have an array of
other detrimental impacts. Some will be disproportionately a�fected.
A lost loved one may also mean a loss of crucial childcare, social and
practical support. If you’re on a low income, you’re less likely to be able
to buy in such help and this can have a real and lasting impact on your
ability to work and subsequent fi nancial security. We may get through
the second wave, but here comes a tsunami of poor mental health,
fi nancial hardships and social readjustments. The impacts are real, and
we need to be ready for that.
The pandemic has isolated us – as a necessary evil – from human
contact at a time when so many needed that comfort the most. For
those who have experienced the isolation and emptiness of virtual
grieving, my heart goes out to you. I have enormous admiration for
your strength and courage. If you can take anything at all from the
embers, let it show you, unequivocally, that you are stronger than you
knew you were... and you will be even stronger than you are now. This
too shall pass.
Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is a Big Issue Ambassador. She is chief fi re
o�fi cer at West Sussex Fire Service and her book, The Heat of the
Moment, is out now (Black Swan, £8.99)
@Sab_CohenHattonImage: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty ImagesFROM 01 MARCH 2021 BIGISSUE.COM | 19
Virtual farewell
Saying goodbye to a loved
one has been a solitary
experience for many
during the pandemicI