Hirra Azmat
Srinagar: Hameeda’s family will never be able to shake off the painful memory of her death in isolation. It is etched in their mind as if it happened yesterday, and time has not dampened the pain.
She died at the hospital after being tested positive for Covid-19. Her family members were not allowed to meet her when she was dying because of the increasing rate of infectivity in the hospital and the high risk of spreading the virus.
“We were not even allowed to enter the premises of the hospital. We requested that we will see our mother from a distance, but they did not give us permission. They were right at their place, but we were not able to control ourselves,” her family member said with a sigh.
The family member said she always used to tell them that her children should be by her bedside when she would be leaving this world. “She died with this desire in her heart. She would have definitely wished us to be there, sitting around her and giving her all love and support,” he said.
Similarly, another male attendant had a woeful tale to tell. “My wife died in isolation in the hospital ward. There was no one with her who would have given her comfort and made her leave this world in peace. The thought of ‘what she would have been passing through every single moment’ leaves a deep scar in my heart,” he said.
He said there are many things a person tells to her/his family members when she/he is close to death. “May be my wife would have also desired to talk with any of us about anything. I will always wonder what her last wish has been,” he said with a voice heavy with emotion.
Covid-19 left behind a trail of trauma for a lot of people in the valley who prematurely lost their children or younger family members. Moreover, due to the lockdown neither they could attend funerals, nor relatives could come to comfort and console them.
A new study has revealed that the inability to attend the last rites of the deceased has resulted in a greater lack of closure and increased the grief and pain of families.
Entitled, “Dying, Death, and Mourning amid Covid-19 Pandemic in Kashmir: A Qualitative Study”, the 2020 study was conducted at the Department of Sociology, Kashmir University.
The study published in OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, was aimed to examine the changing nature of death, dying, and mourning among Muslims of Kashmir due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The findings revealed that the deceased mostly died in isolation with no one around.
“Mourning the loss was also highly challenging with participants receiving less in-person support thus leading to mourning in isolation. The inability to perform last rites added yet another layer of grief which resulted in prolonged grief among the bereaved and impacted their overall wellbeing,” it said.
Senior Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, KU, Dr. Saleem Jehangir, who is also co-author of the study said the Covid-19 pandemic has severely changed people’s daily lives, restructured social order, and social practices, including how people die and mourn the loss of their loved ones.
“Death and mourning in Covid-19 pandemic emerged as well-known themes in the lives of countless individuals, families, groups, and communities in diverse contexts,” he said.
He noted that the results of our study suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic is proving to be disastrous by not only affecting the way we die but also how we handle the dead and how we mourn.
“It has disturbed the livelihood of gravediggers, and the profession of people associated with it and has generated new reasons for death,” he said.
