By Brandon HENSLEY

The COVID-19 crisis has created dilemmas for businesses that have remained open this spring, and that includes a change in how services are performed at funeral homes.

Glendale Funeral Home director Ed Brail and Crippen Mortuary arrangement counselor Chris Reichman said both of their places have remained open while complying with social distances guidelines, but that means services have fewer people. It also means having to deal with a new set of emotions on top of mourning.

“It’s causing odd situations, and real sadness. It’s an untraditional experience,” Reichman said.

Crippen hasn’t seen a decrease in the number of deaths the mortuary handles. Reichman said the number of cases at Crippen may be slightly higher than average during this time compared to other years, but couldn’t say if COVID-19 was the reason. He did confirm that some of the deaths were from the virus.

Both Crippen and Glendale Funeral Home are abiding by the Safer at Home ordinance, which states services in-house can only hold 10 people at maximum. People are expected to wear masks and practice social distancing while in the room.

In a time of mourning, though, the rules are often bent, or broken.

“Some of them disregard social distance,” Reichman said. “There is hugging and I’m not going to stop them if I see that. It’s becomes free will at that point.”

Reichman said he deals the best he can with interactions between him and families.

“It’s kind of a grey area. We try not to [touch]. We’ve been extended hands from families,” he said. “I’m not going to reject a handshake.”

Reichman said currently the amount of funeral arrangements done on the phone compared to in-person is 75% to 25%. He said usually it’s the other way around. Elderly people who still prefer to sign documents by hand, not over email, will have someone from Crippen drive to their home and drop off the papers. That person from Crippen will get back in their car, wait for the signee to open the door and finish the paperwork, get out of the car and retrieve the papers.

“There’s a whole personal side with this,” Reichman said. “COVID is really taking that away.”

At Glendale Funeral Home, Brail has created a different way for people to hold service called drive-thru visitations. Brail, who is from Chicago, got the idea from a funeral home in the Windy City. Glendale Funeral Home used to be a bank with a drive-thru area for transactions. The casket is brought out to the driveway behind a screen to block the public’s view.

“People pull up, roll down, offer condolences to family,” said Brail, who noted people will also give money in an envelope to the family. “They pay respects to the dead, then drive away.”

Desperate times call for creative measures.

“We had to figure out some way to serve the families to the best of our abilities,” Brail said. Regular services are still an option, but allows only 10 people or fewer, and only immediate family.

In mid-May, he said he had facilitated six drive-thru visitations over a two-week span. Overall, the number of cases Glendale Funeral Home has received during the crisis has been “about the same” as usual.

“For May, we are three cases above last year. There’s no big rise in the death rate,” he said.

Like Reichman, Brail enacted safety measures on March 18. It was a time of uncertainty.

“We didn’t know what to expect … We got some extra coolers for the care centers in case they were needed. You must prepare for the worst.”

The embalming process is still done the same way, and the chapels are sanitized after each service.

Reichman said despite receiving typical numbers of cases, he’s recognized that some families are holding off on services for when restrictions are lifted. They’d prefer to honor their loved ones the way it has been done for generations.

“People have their funeral traditions that have gone on for hundreds of years,” Reichman said. “I’ve had a lot of people express sadness over [the current changes].”

“The loss of a loved one is difficult under normal circumstances,” added Brail. “When one isn’t able to properly grieve, its even more difficult. While we offer a variety of virtual services, [drive-thru funerals] provide our families with another way to say their final good-byes. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken away so many important and comforting rituals that are a part of the grieving process, this is Glendale Funeral Home’s way to give our families, and community, as much support as they need to grieve.”

  Brandon Hensley, Charly Shelton