Life After a COVID Death

My guide for those who suffered a loss and for those who know us

It’s been less than two weeks since my dad passed away because of complications due to COVID-19, and in some ways it still doesn’t seem real. I contracted COVID-19 from him and just had flu symptoms much less severe than when I had H1N1 in 2010. He spent three miserable weeks in the hospital, suffered from multi-organ failure, and never came home. 

And even though we all have had a steady news diet of all things COVID for over a year and a half, it’s a whole different ball game when it comes into your own home and claims a life of one of the people you love the most. 

Modest Proposals isn’t about my personal problems or anything like that, so that’s not what I’m going to focus on with this post, either. I do think it’s highly relevant to the current moment in which we live to talk about how we should treat the loved ones of those who have died because of COVID and how the loved ones left behind can begin to heal. Honestly, I wish I read something like this a year and a half ago because I would have avoided some mistakes. 

So, here are some things I would want all of us who care about someone who lost someone to COVID-19 to know: 

1. Please limit the medical questions. 

Was he vaccinated? Did he contract the delta variant? What exactly killed him? How did the medical staff at the hospital treat him? These are all valid questions on some level, but despite the answers to these questions, the outcome is still the same. And even though most people are just curious, asking questions like these puts loved ones in the position of justifying personal medical choices that most people don’t have enough knowledge or context to judge. What is more, asking medical questions can make loved ones relive one of the worst days of their life. If a loved one opens up to you about medical complications or details, just listen. In most cases it’s better if you don’t ask. 

2. Your facts and opinions don’t matter. 

I wish I knew this one earlier. It doesn’t matter if you’re right, you have peer-reviewed studies to back up your claims, or you had COVID and survived. Most people who have lost someone to the coronavirus have a difficult time talking about vaccines, masks, and therapeutics even if they agree with you. I’ve had years of practice separating my personal opinions from the study of politics, and I cannot even watch the news when it talks about anything COVID related. What you say about these topics almost always makes it worse unless the one suffering a loss starts the conversation. And if you disagree, there may be an angry part of them looking for a fight, and it’s better for all involved not to get that going.

3. Judgement is hard to hide. 

I remember talking to someone when my dad was still in the ICU, and even though they didn’t want to start a debate with me about the medical aspects of COVID, the judgement in their voice spoke volumes. Please know that if someone else made a medical decision about COVID with which you disagree, you know very little if anything about their body, health, medical history, family history, and reasons for making the choices they did. Just remember that some people can make a lot of bad health choices concerning COVID and other things and live long lives while others can do everything right and die from something that seems insignificant like a cough or the flu. Be humble enough to know that you don’t know what you don’t know. 

4. A COVID death is still a death. 

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter how we die as much as that we die. Focus on the life lived and the grief in the death. As far as I’m concerned, I am not denying my dad’s cause of death, I’m just not going to dwell on it. Treat a COVID death like you would any other, with compassion, care, and respect. 

For those who have lost a loved one:

1. Coping with a great loss is not a linear process. 

I’ve gone through the stages of grief out of order, hit some of them more than once, and experienced conflicting emotions many times, and it’s been less than two weeks since my dad passed away. One thing that has helped me is when I am at a place of acceptance, I wrote about it and told my family what I was thinking and feeling in those moments. When I have a hard time accepting his death, I read what I wrote and my family reminds me what I said before. Learn to let go of the guilt because ultimately we have no control over life and death no matter what we do or don’t do. And it’s never fair.

2. You feel what you feel when you feel it. 

My dad and I were close from day one, and my heart has never been this broken. Even so, I’m not going to feel guilty when I have moments of happiness, I’m not going to feel bad that I am not constantly depressed, and I’m not going to apologize if I need a minute to cry. While I won’t let my feelings dominate my life, and I must do things contrary to my emotions sometimes, I also recognize that I shouldn’t feel obligated to be sad because others are crying or be angry at those who can laugh. I feel what I feel, and I shouldn’t deny that. I’m also still responsible for how I choose to respond to my feelings. 

3. Grieve your loss, but don’t forget to live.

May we all remember than none of us will get out of this alive and that each age has faced turmoil, tragedy, and death. Those of us left behind must live well with our hearts set on eternity for those who have faith in God. My dad and I are both Christians, and we will be reunited again one day. That hope and the incredible life my dad in his mere sixty years on earth inspire me to make the most of the time I have left. I know my dad would want me to become better, not bitter.

C.S. Lewis said it best in 1948.  

“…Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented… It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds...

…Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man....”