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Sunshot by Michael Hall — Funeral director Arnold Strickland of Strickland Funeral Home stands in the empty chapel at his Hartwell location where funeral services are few and far between these days because of social distancing requirements issued by national, state and local governments.
Over the past three weeks, the Rev. Allen Stewart has transitioned from preaching in front of a crowd of more than 400 people, to gazing over empty pews while he delivers his sermon at First United Methodist Church in Hartwell.
“It’s hard to preach to an empty church,” Stewart said. “But we’ve tried to make the services as normal as possible so that people can feel some normalcy in this chaotic situation.”
The lack of community gatherings is one of the biggest ways in which the novel coronavirus pandemic has affected local folks, distancing each other during church, funeral services and weddings, just to name a few typical reasons to congregate. Gov. Brian Kemp recently ordered any gatherings of 10 or more people to be banned, unless attendees can maintain six feet or more away from each other, nixing fellowship at church and placing added hardship on those mourning the loss of a loved one.
However, the ability to stream services via the internet has become crucial for these places of gathering during this time. Stewart said First United Methodist Church has been streaming services for a while, but is perfecting it now as the online traffic increases.
“The Facebook Live and all that, before this happened, was a convenience, and since this has happened, all of that now is a necessity,” Stewart said.
Both Strickland Funeral Home and Coile and Hall Funeral Directors are embracing online services as well. Both are offering to stream services online for any family requesting it.
“We are set up for that, we just haven’t had anybody take that option,” Duane Hall from Coile and Hall Funeral Directors said.
Arnold Strickland said his business at Strickland Funeral Home is encouraging graveside services only, due to the difficulty of being able to maintain social distancing requirements indoors. Strickland is offering families a free public memorial service for when things get back to normal. He said most people are respecting the rules of staying at least six feet away from each other even at the graveside services, one of which was held recently and had around 70 to 80 people in attendance.
“People were using their common sense and stayed separated,” Strickland said. “I was prepared to make a
statement about it and didn’t have to.”
Hall said he and his business partner Chris Coile are also only scheduling graveside services now, but during a recent funeral one family had to be taken into the viewing area in shifts to maintain social distancing requirements. Hall said there won’t be chairs at graveside services either because of all the sanitation that has to take place afterwards.
“It’s definitely affecting our industry,” Hall said.
Many funeral homes are being impacted by the lack of basic sanitation supplies and protective equipment as well, Hall said, but thankfully Coile and Hall restocked just before the pandemic emerged.
“If it continues much longer it will affect us some,” Hall said.
Strickland and Hall both said the way in which bodies are handled has changed some with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements and national associations’ requirements, but they say they always take necessary precautions.
“You really should take the same precautions no matter whether you know they’re infectious or not. That’s always our protocol,” Hall said.
Strickland maintains that respect will be upheld at services, even during this unprecedented crisis. Hall said the services there will still be “pomp” and they’re doing “everything within our power to make sure the families are taken care of at the same level that they always have been.”
“We’re not going to diminish any kind of service, we’re just going to have to do it a little different,” Strickland said.
As far as churches, one of their biggest gathering events of the year coming up soon, Easter Sunday, won’t be able to happen at church as long as the social distancing requirements are still in place. Stewart said the church will have an online sunrise-service on Easter morning, and will celebrate the Christian holiday together when they are able to return to church.
For Stewart, the hardest part about not being able to gather has been not being able to be with families who are struggling.
“The hardest thing for me is not being able to be with people in the hospital and to be with those families,” Stewart said. “I pray over the phone with folks all the time, but that’s hard to do when somebody’s dying or when a family is in great distress.”