Funeral homes dealing with new times in the pandemic

Funeral homes are among other businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Holland & Bonine Funeral Home Owner Jennifer Kinsella said things have been depressing. 

“People are dying without their family and trying to exist without seeing their families,” she said. “Funerals and memorial services have changed drastically.” 

Daniel Dahl, owner and operator of Wilderness Funeral Homes in Chinook, said in January and February business was pretty busy, but then in March when Gov. Steve Bullock shut the state down with the stay-at-home order work slowed down pretty significantly.

“When it gets really cold, when it’s minus-20 or 30 and people don’t go out or do anything, generally people stay healthier and they stay alive,” he said. “It is to be expected a lot of the times during the winter months we’ve had times when things have been busier.”

Blaine County had its first COVID death this month, he said.

Blaine County Health Department reports that county is now up to three COVID-19-related deaths.

Hill County Health Department reports 14 COVID-19-related deaths in Hill County.

Kinsella said Holland & Bonine is not over capacity, but has a plan in place to accommodate the situation.

But the pandemic has changed how things work.

This isn’t the norm, people share their grief and need to hear that their loved ones mattered, and that they were important to the family and to others, she said.

People need to be touched and hugged and their lives need to be celebrated, she said, adding that instead they are saying they will have services when they can all gather safely, when in reality those services won’t happen.

“We have been busy, not sure if all of it can be attributed to COVID,” Kinsella said. “Mentally this is difficult, we rely on one another at work to keep us grounded because no one understands what all we go through.”

A lot has to be done for families when they lose a loved one, she said, and when add COVID circumstances to the death, it just makes things more difficult for families because services are limited now, masks are required and strict guidelines have to be followed. 

Dahl said he is seeing a lower case load of people dying than in previous years.

“It is sad that we have to work with people that do pass away from COVID, because people feel like it’s not a natural death in a sense, but it hasn’t changed my workload as much,” Dahl said. 

His business also does have a plan in place if it does reach capacity, he added.

“We’ve tried really to make it easier for families during this time because COVID is part of it, but it’s the whole shut down that’s really made things difficult for people,” Dahl said. “We’ve tried to do online streaming for families for funeral services. My personal belief and it’s just that a personal belief that if you have to delay a service or prolong to a service for a family it can sometimes cause more damage than good.

“We’ve encouraged doing small services, keeping things simple, streaming on our Facebook page to complete the closure, complete the grieving process, get the closure at the end and I think it’s worked out fairly well for us,” he added. “... We’ve been able to accomplish a lot of things with technology, which we’re really fortunate to have.”