LONDON (AP) – For the past nine months, Gordon Bonner has been in the “homeland of despair and desolation” after losing his wife for 63 years due to the coronavirus pandemic that has now ended his life. of 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 in what would have been his 84th birthday.
“Suddenly I understood that I had to change my attitude, that memories are not shackles, they are garlands and should be worn as garlands around the shoulders and used to communicate between the dead and the fast. “, said the retired army major interviewed from his home in the northern city of Leeds. “Mourning is the price we pay for love.”
Bonner, 86, is just one of hundreds of thousands of Britons working in pain due to the pandemic. With more than 2 million deaths worldwide, people around the world are mourning their loved ones, but the weight of the UK weighs especially heavily: it is the smallest nation to have surpassed 100,000.
While Wuhan, Bergamo or New York may be more closely related to the pandemic, the UK has one of the highest death rates relative to its population. In comparison, the United States, with five times the British population, has twice as many deaths. Experts say that in general, virus accounts are an insufficient number due to limited evidence and lost cases, especially in the early days of the pandemic.
In addition to the excess of deaths, the excess of mourning is included, which is made even more acute thanks to social measures of distancing to curb the spread of the virus.
“There will be a tsunami of mourning and mental health issues this year, next year, in progress, due to complications, because of course people have not been able to have the usual rituals,” he said. Linda Magistris, founder of the Good Grief Trust, which brings together mourning services in the UK under one umbrella.
Bonner understands the need for restrictions, but that hasn’t made it any easier.
Six weeks after she was barred from going to Muriel’s nursing home due to blockade restrictions and 10 days after she was diagnosed with COVID-19, Bonner was called to the hospital and, “dressed like a space man,” he witnessed his wife’s final agonizing moments.
“He was working so hard to breathe, his lips stretched as if he was sucking on a straw,” he said. “Now I can see her face with her lips in that position and it was devastating and made me fall to the side.”
It was the last time he saw Muriel and this image haunts him. And in what he called an “evil twist on the tale,” Bonner was not offered the opportunity to replace that memory, as his wife’s body was considered an “active coronavirus reservoir.” He was not even able to make her dress the way he wanted for her cremation. Hugs with friends and family, they are not advised.
These rituals help people cope, a task that is now becoming more difficult as they cannot escape the scale of death in the UK – beyond the annual average of around 600,000 – since from the regular sound of ambulance sirens to the alarming headlines of newsletters.
“The backdrop of death, of pain, creates a rather caustic context,” said Andy Langford, Cruse’s clinical director, a leading charity for people in need.
Many who are left behind do not know 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.
Mourning charities have entered, adapting online support groups, which may appeal to those who would otherwise have been reluctant to seek help in the world prior to COVID-19.
But resources are running out, especially when the country regularly records more than 1,000 deaths a day. The government is being asked to provide additional funding to strengthen helplines, advisory services and other community support programs.
“It’s really important that we don’t pathologize grief as indicative of mental health difficulties, but equally a large proportion of people will need support,” said Dr Charley Baker, an associate professor of mental health at the University of Nottingham.
Many will not need any external support or a minimum. But there is concern that some of the penalties will be repressed: that people may be unconsciously protecting themselves from all their impact and that they may end up being hit hard when the pandemic is brought under control.
“I think it’s going to be weird because it’s going to be really positive when hopefully things can get back to a certain degree of normalcy, but I think it would also be a very difficult time because we’ve all been a little frozen in time,” Jo Goodman said. who lost his father Stuart, 72, last April, just days after testing positive for the virus.
A couple of months after the death of his father, Goodman, 32, co-founded the group COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice to pressure the government to support a public investigation into how the pandemic was treated last spring.
“We can’t 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 has said an investigation will be carried out, but only once the crisis is over. But critics already argue that the government has repeated the mistakes it made in the spring in the current resurgence., such as closing the country too late. The UK is also struggling with a new, more contagious variant that could lead to 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 has not yet supported the national commemoration of the virus victims, to suggest a “simultaneous memorial service for those of us who have lost people due to COVID can go somewhere to seek solace ”.
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