“Everyone is going on about this new virus called COVID. Apparently it’s really bad and it’s all over the news,” I say to the unconscious man on the bed.
That was a year ago. Coronavirus wasn’t really a thing. We’d heard about it at the start of the year and it was all everyone could talk about, but if I’m completely honest, I’m not sure I was truly and seriously aware of how significant the situation would be. I’m not sure anyone did.
Nevertheless, a year ago, I chose to continue talking to the man on that bed, clutching his hand, and trying desperately not to fall apart, because my dad was dying of cancer. It had come out of nowhere. He was supposed to be near remission. He’d lost his job at Christmas at the age of 58. He was losing his motivation. Doctors thought he was depressed. No-one saw the fire and fury of his cancer coming into force. From diagnosis to death it had been four weeks. I’d negotiated through the world of wills and probate at top speed to make sure everything was ready. I’d spent my birthday in the hospital with my dad, half conscious at the time.
And looking back, in this context, in the context of a pandemic, I am one of the lucky ones who was able to hold my dad’s hand in his final days- his final moments. I didn’t have to wear a mask, the nurses didn’t have to go through vigorous PPE regimes (although, the day my dad did die, there was growing and palpable tension about how soon it would be before residents would no longer be allowed visitors), and my mum and I didn’t have to say goodbye over an iPad or over a telephone call. We could be there in person. We could hold his hand, give him hugs, and give him one final kiss before we said goodbye.
That was 17th March 2020.
Cruelly, exactly six weeks before, we had just said goodbye to my father in law who had suddenly had a stroke on an around the world cruise, and my husband had flown out to Tahiti to be with his mum. There were rumblings then of COVID-19; parts of the cruise were suddenly cancelled and when they both finally got home, we were sat in our homes anxiously awaiting the safe delivery of the body. Coronavirus was already creating havoc across the world with fears growing over closing borders and travel. But we did get my father in law back. We had a funeral and celebration of his life. It was lovely.
Again, we were one of the lucky ones.
The passing of my dad was a very different experience. Four weeks after his death, we had 8 mourners, including the person leading the service and the funeral director. We were sat spaced apart. We didn’t have any real flowers; the importation of flowers from abroad had been limited. We couldn’t touch the coffin to say goodbye. We couldn’t cry and hug each other outside in our grief. At some point because of COVID-19 restrictions, we didn’t even think we were going to be able to have anyone at the crematorium and there was talk that might have had to have been wheeled in.
Luckily we were there. Luckily he received the dignity of being carried in.
But then it was over.
No wake. No celebration of his life. Nothing.
And we were some of the lucky ones.
The injustice of the ending of my dad’s life still stings. I remember clearly talking to people in the aftermath and explaining that we would do something in the Autumn, but here we are, a year on, and there’s been nothing to celebrate his life. No space for us to grieve.
We weren’t even able to grieve with my mother in law; two women, my mother and my husband’s mother robbed of the family connections to be with each other, to hold each other, to sob together… Our time would come. It has to.
This story isn’t unique. We now live in a world where this virus has robbed so many of goodbyes, funerals, celebrations, and even the process of grief. In the wake of someone’s death, you spend time with your loved ones, you comfort each other, sometimes people come over, bring meals to each other, have a cup of tea, bring flowers… Like so many others, this was robbed from us. We weren’t allowed to visit- a FaceTime equivalent would have to do. And even when restrictions lifted, if they were anything like me, some didn’t want to risk putting loved ones or critically ill relatives in danger by visiting them just because of how high their exposure is to this virus.
Now, this isn’t meant to sound self-involved and self-absorbed, but it is a reality. It is a reality that the teachers, educators, and staff in our schools, just like every other sector across the world, have been irreversibly maimed in some way by the impact and grief following this pandemic. And if they are anything like me, although they might not be, they might have been telling themselves for a long time whilst they have been suffering in the aftermath of a death of a loved one- COVID or non-COVID related- that at some point there will be a time to grieve and heal with loved ones. For me, I can only liken it to holding my breath. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath waiting for the right time to really come to terms with the pain of losing so much within such a short space of time. But there’s been no time to catch a breath. Emotional capacities have been spent on parenting and teaching during a lockdown with precise timetabling required between myself and my husband around when I needed to teach a ‘live lesson’, when I had a meeting, when I had to mark, and who was responsible for the toddler. And we are one of the lucky ones, because incredible nursery provision meant that this was only needed a handful of times. However, that emotional capacity, or a lack of, is one that I know many parents can relate to- the exhaustion, the stress, the fear, the guilt at home and at work, and now work and home life guilt are blurred even further. And the strain of emotional capacities just continue with the day-to-day of being a teacher, putting on the ‘teacher face’ to your students and to your colleagues.
And all the time, you are still holding your breath, waiting to see when all of this insanity will die down, and you just breathe, cry and grieve in a normal, safe space.
And the anger and frustration when it still doesn’t come when your loved one hasn’t been given the respect, dignity and justice to be openly loved and celebrated after their passing.
I know that I’ve put my grief on hold, for better or worse, but it’s what I needed to do- and still need to do. There’s been no choice. Our job is teaching has just got busier and more stressful with 11th hour edicts from the Government, changing goal posts, and then just Doing. Our. Job.
I realised that I needed to talk to someone and that I couldn’t just keep these feelings bottled up forever, so I called two counselling services: the first with a waiting list and from whom I’m still waiting to hear back from because of the amount of strain they are currently under, and the second, a 24 hour service where I started to explain and was rushed off the phone by the call handler.
In the end, due to the fact that I was in the process of doing my MTPT Project Module 2 Accreditation, I ended up just crying down the phone to my coach, Sarah, who helped redirect me and help me process part of what was going on.
Yet, the above is not going to be uncommon for our teachers. We are often encouraged to put on our teaching ‘persona’, but if the system is stretched and we have a workforce with numbers of us in emotional pain yet without an avenue to deal with the grief because of these exceptional times, then something has to be done.
So here we are, a year later. I still feel no closer to processing my grief and this situation has not given breathing space to be able to do so. The introspective nature of a lockdown period means that for everyone else, it’s been a year since the death of my dad, so the grieving process has started. The reality is that I haven’t even touched upon it yet.
This story isn’t here for pity and sympathy; I’ve only chosen to share this because I want to raise the bigger questions about the fallout of this pandemic on the emotional capacity of the teaching workforce. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been given an extension on my compassionate leave to take some time to reflect a year on from my dad’s death. Not everyone will be so lucky. Not everyone will be in such fortunate positions with staffing at the moment.
Be aware of the colleagues in your school who have lost loved ones during this pandemic. They might not even had time to process or grieve yet. Their emotional capacity will be limited.
How will you support them? How can we help each other get through this outrageously unprecedented period and breathe again?
Maternity Reads and Thoughts 