LONDON (AP) – For nine months, Gordon Bonner has been “in the heart of despair and desolation” after losing his 63-year-old wife to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people in the UK.
Only recently did Bonner think he could move on – after feeling the spirit of his wife, Muriel, near him on what would have been his 84th birthday.
“Suddenly, I understood that I needed to change my attitude, that memories are not chains, they are garlands and you should use them as garlands around your shoulders and use them to communicate between the living and the dead,” said the Army Major retired in an interview from his home in Leeds. “Sadness is the price we pay for love.”
Bonner, 86, is just one of many hundreds of thousands of Britons struggling with pain because of the pandemic. With more than 2 million dead worldwide, people around the world are mourning their loved ones, but the UK tribute weighs particularly heavily: it is the smallest nation to exceed the 100,000 mark.
Although Wuhan, Bergamo or New York may be more associated with the pandemic, the United Kingdom has one of the highest mortality rates in relation to its population. For comparison, the United States, with five times the population of Britain, has four times the number of deaths. Experts say virus counts are generally underestimated due to limited testing and missed cases, especially in the beginning of the pandemic.
Along with the excess of deaths, there is the excess of mourning, made even more acute by the social distance measures in force to reduce the spread of the virus.
“There will be a tsunami of mourning and mental health problems this year, next year, underway, due to complications, because of course people were unable to have the usual rituals,” said Linda Magistris, founder of the Good Grief Trust, which brings together the mourning services in the United Kingdom under the same umbrella.
Bonner understands the need for restrictions, but that hasn’t made it any easier.
Six weeks after being prevented from going to Muriel’s home because of blocking restrictions and 10 days after she was diagnosed with COVID-19, Bonner was summoned to the hospital and, “dressed as an astronaut”, witnessed the statement of his wife dying moments.
“She was trying so hard to breathe that her lips were pursed as if she were sucking on a straw,” he said. “I can see her face now with her lips in that position and it was devastating and she threw me aside.”
That was the last time he saw Muriel, and that image haunts him. And in what he called a “perverse twist in history”, Bonner did not have a chance to replace that memory, as his wife’s body was considered an “active coronavirus reservoir”. He was not even able to have her dressed in the way he wanted for her cremation. Hugs with friends and family – well, they are not recommended.
These rituals help people cope with the situation, a difficult task now because there is no escaping the scale of deaths in the UK – beyond the annual average of around 600,000 – from the regular sound of ambulance sirens to alarming headlines in newsletters.
“The backdrop of death, of pain, creates a very caustic context,” said Andy Langford, clinical director at Cruse, a leading charity for bereaved people.
Many left behind are unsure where to look for help, in part because they are navigating the grieving process at a time when local health services are not functioning normally.
Grieving charities intervened, adapting online support groups, which may attract those who would otherwise be reluctant to seek help in the pre-COVID-19 world.
But resources are limited, especially when the country regularly registers more than 1,000 deaths per day. The government is being urged to provide extra funding to reinforce support lines, counseling services and other community support programs.
“It is very important that we do not pathologize bereavement as indicative of mental health difficulties, but an equally large proportion of people will need support,” said Dr. Charley Baker, associate professor of mental health at the University of Nottingham.
Many will not need any or only minimal external support. But there is a concern that part of the pain is repressed: that people may be subconsciously protecting themselves from its full impact and may end up being hit hard when the pandemic gets under control.
“I think it will be weird because it will be a very positive thing when things can return to some degree of normality, but I think it would also be a very difficult time because we were all a little frozen in time,” said Jo Goodman, who lost his father 72-year-old Stuart last April, just days after he tested positive for the virus.
A few months after her father’s death, Goodman, 32, co-founded the COVID-19 Families Grieving for Justice group to pressure the government to support a public inquiry into how the pandemic was treated last spring.
“We cannot normalize the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people die every day and know what their families are going through,” said Goodman.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said an inquiry will take place – but only after the crisis is over. But critics are already arguing that the government repeated the mistakes it made in the spring in the current resurgence, how to block the country too late. The UK is also struggling with a new, more contagious variant that may present a higher risk of death than the original strain.
Bonner, for his part, hopes that the country will have time to mourn properly and is considering sending a letter to Johnson, who has not yet supported a national celebration for the victims of the virus, to suggest a “simultaneous reminder service for those of us who lost people to COVID can go somewhere looking for comfort. “
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