COVID destroyed lives spent together. Now those left behind must say farewell by Zoom Share Updated: 9:49 PM CST Feb 4, 2021 By Mick Krever and Phil Black, CNN
COVID destroyed lives spent together. Now those left behind must say farewell by Zoom Share Updated: 9:49 PM CST Feb 4, 2021
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Show Transcript todo like all of us. Now Trish and Peter Skinner find comfort in family video calls here the connecting to dozens of people across England and the US Your boys air so grown up for a brief moment, there s joy seeing all those loving faces. But the feeling is quickly crushed as the screen shows why they ve come together. They re watching live images from a gray, windy cemetery near England Southern cursed where Tricia s father is being buried. Herbert John Tate died from Covert 19. He was almost 104 remembered as the strong willed patriarch who held his family together for generations. That was granddad on. I loved him. Pandemic me
Covid destroyed lives spent together. Now those left behind must say farewell by Zoom
Trish Skinner and her husband sit on a couch, flip open their iPad cover, and open Zoom. Skinner is attending her father’s funeral. Dozens of relatives will join her on this call.
One hundred miles away, near the southern English coast, someone holds up an iPhone as a coffin containing the body of Herbert John Tate, 103, is lowered into a wet, clay-lined grave.
The Zoom call is as much closure as Skinner, 72, can get at least for now.
“It’s not how it’s supposed to be,” she says. “There’s no interaction, physically. And that’s the biggest thing that’s missing during this terrible time.”