Grieving From A Distance: Coronavirus Changes How Families Experience Loss Of Loved Ones

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The coronavirus pandemic has changed almost every aspect of American life, including how families grieve after losing a loved one.

"This is not the way I wanted my dad to die," Alex Cisneros said.

Cisneros, a nurse for Los Angeles County's MLK Outpatient Urgent Care who lives in La Puente, reflected on the devastating loss of his father Alfonso Cisneros, who died after a two-week battle with COVID-19 where he was only allowed to have virtual visitors.

"It's devastating to witness," Noelle Berman said. "It really is."

At the iconic Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where Berman works as a family counselor, the loneliness of recent burials has been jarring.

"People are dying alone, and they're grieving alone," she said. "My position here is to help people through the worst day of their life and literally handhold."

But with newly installed plastic barriers to keep families and staff safe, Berman said she is barred from hugging people.

It's a scenario that has been playing out at countless cemeteries, including Evergreen Cemetery and Crematorium in Boyle Heights.

"This year is different," Arturo Nunez, assistant director of operations, said.

The landscape is more overgrown than normal, partly because two of the cemetery's longtime groundskeepers have been isolating at home as demand has skyrocketed.

"I do everything," Nunez said. "I run administration, I process ashes and I help with the burials as well."

He also keeps track of monthly numbers of cremations and burials.

In April of last year, the cemetery handled roughly 250 cremations and burials. In April of this year, Nunez said they handled 497.

"For whatever reason, it's just been heavy," he said.

Back at Hollywood Forever, a 60-year-old aspiring comedian who died of a heart attack was laid to rest with a single yellow flower on his casket. Cemetery staff stood in for the man's family.

"They can't be with loved ones at the funeral or burial whether they had COVID or not," Berman said.

And as Cisneros and his family finalize arrangements for his father who contracted the virus at a nursing home, there was one memory he kept replaying.

"Monday through Friday, he'd get up at 3 o'clock in the morning with me and walk me to the bus stop in South Central Los Angeles," Cisneros said. "'Son, I want to walk with you. I want to make sure you're OK.' That was my dad."