The Invisible Front Lines A The Invisible Front Lines by Jessica Farren was handling 1,000 more death calls per day than our typical average. The most challenging task for most of us was adjusting our normal reflexes to console grieving callers with the fact that we could not give any false assurances or make any promises on behalf of the funeral home. This pandemic has proven to be a trying time for all of us answering calls for funeral homes at ASD. Our staff was forced to adapt to this extraordinary event in ways we never could have imagined. One call specialist described the difficulty of handling a call for a young woman who lost both her parents and her brother to COVID-19 within 24 hours. Another recalled having to take “sobbing breaks” between calls because of how much they affected her emotionally. While our staff are accustomed to helping families who have lost a loved one on a regular basis, the magnitude of tragedy created by COVID-19 has been truly unfathomable. For those who do not work in the funeral profession or do not live in a highly impacted area, it may be difficult to fully understand the trail of devastation this virus leaves behind in its wake. For all of us here at ASD, that reality is painfully clear. In many articles profiling funeral homes in hot spots like the Bronx and Brooklyn, directors shared openly how difficult it was for them to turn away a family in need. This was the first time in over 100 years our society had to grapple with issues like a lack of space to store bodies. This is the first time a surge in deaths caused monthlong delays at cemeteries and crematories. This is the first time funeral directors were ever forced to say to a family, “We are unable to serve you right now.” ASD call specialists are right there with our clients because we are often the ones communicating this information on their behalf, listening to the desperation of families who were trying to ensure their loved one was not left in a nursing home or taken to a place like Hart Island. We heard and felt firsthand the devastating emotional toll this virus took on bereaved families. Like our clients, we have struggled to cope with the fact that we are sometimes unable to provide comfort and reassurance in the same manner we normally can. The words we were so accustomed to using when responding to someone distraught are not available to us. All we could do during the height of the pandemic was try our best to convey with our tone and our condolences how www.ogr.org | The Independent® 21
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