LONDON (AP) – Gordon Bonner has been in the ‘interior of despair and desolation’ for nine months after losing his 63-year-old wife to the coronavirus pandemic that has now claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people in the UK .
Recently, Bonner thought he might be able to move on – after noticing the ghost of his wife, Muriel, near him during her 84th birthday.
“I suddenly understood that I had to change my attitude, that memories are not shackles, they are cliffs and one has to wear them like cliffs around your shoulders and use them to communicate between the fast and the dead,” the retired army major said maintenance of his home in the northern city of Leeds. “Sadness is the price we pay for love.”
Bonner (86) is just one of many hundreds of thousands of Britons suffering from the pandemic. With more than 2 million deaths worldwide, people all over the world mourn loved ones, but the UK’s toll weighs particularly heavily: it is the smallest nation to reach the 100,000 mark.
While Wuhan, Bergamo or New York City are more related to the pandemic, the UK has one of the highest death rates compared to its population. By comparison, the United States, with five times the British population, has four times the number of deaths. Experts believe that virus numbers in general are underestimations due to limited tests and missed cases, especially early in the pandemic.
In addition to excess deaths comes excess sadness, which is exacerbated by social distance measures to slow the spread of the virus.
“There will be a tsunami of sadness and mental health issues this year, next year, due to the complications, because people obviously could not keep the usual rituals,” said Linda Magistris, founder of the Good. Sad Confidence, which brings together funeral services in the UK under one umbrella.
Bonner understands the need for restrictions, but that has not made it any easier.
Six weeks after he was prevented from going to Muriel’s care home due to lock-up restrictions and ten days after COVID-19 was diagnosed with her, Bonner was called to hospital and, ‘like an astronaut’, he testified. finale of his wife painful moments.
“She worked so hard to catch her breath, her lips tightened as if sucking on a straw,” he said. “I see her face now with her lips in that position and it was devastating and it hit me sideways.”
It was the last time he saw Muriel, and the image haunted him. And in what he calls a ‘wicked twist in the story’, Bonner was not given the chance to replace the memory, as his wife’s body is considered a ‘reservoir of active coronavirus’. He could not even dress her as he wanted for her cremation. Hugs with friends and family – well, that’s not recommended.
These rituals help people to move on, a task that is now more difficult because there is no escape to the scale of death in the UK – beyond the annual average of around 600,000 – from the regular sound of ambulance sirens to the disturbing news on news bulletins.
“The background of death, of grief, all around creates a rather caustic context,” said Andy Langford, clinical director of Cruse, said, a leading charity for the bereaved.
Many underprivileged people are not sure where to seek help, in part because they are navigating the grieving process at a time when local health services are not operating normally.
Charities have stepped in, and adapted support groups online, which can appeal to those who would otherwise be reluctant to seek help in the pre-COVID-19 world.
But resources are expanding, especially as the country regularly picks up more than 1,000 deaths a day. The government is being asked to provide extra money to strengthen helplines, counseling services and other community support programs.
“It’s really important that we do not have to suffer as an indication of mental health problems, but just as a large part of the people will need support,” said Dr. Charley Baker, associate professor of mental health at the University of Nottingham, said.
Many need no or only minimal outside support. But there are concerns that some of the grief is being tackled: that people may subconsciously protect themselves from the full impact, and that they could eventually be hit hard when the pandemic comes under control.
‘I think it would be weird because it would really be a positive thing if things could hopefully return to some normalcy again, but I think it would also be a very difficult moment because we were all a little bit frozen in time, ”said Jo Goodman, who lost her 72-year-old father Stuart last April, a few days after testing positive for the virus.
A few months after her father died, Goodman, 32, co-founded the group COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice to put the government under pressure to conduct a public inquiry into the way the pandemic was handled last year. , to support.
“We can not normalize the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people die every day and know what their families are going through,” Goodman said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said an investigation would take place – but only after the crisis was over. But critics have already argued that the government has repeated the mistakes it made in the spring in the current revival, such as closing the country. The UK is also disputing a new, more contagious variant that could pose a higher risk of death than the original strain.
Meanwhile, Bonner hopes the country will take the time to mourn properly and is considering sending a letter to Johnson, who still has a national commemoration for virus victims, proposing a “simultaneous memorial service” so that those of us what people have lost to COVID can go somewhere to seek comfort. ”
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