Private Story
COVID FUNERALS
Burials without relatives and funerals on streaming
The funerals in Italy in the month of March 2020 are quadrupled comparing to 2019. In the city of Turin there have been 267 deaths more than the previous year.The funerals are without relatives of infectious deceased of Corona virus because the relatives are in quarantine and so forced to stay home.
There are also funerals of foreigners without relatives because they died in Turin, due to Corona virus or not, and they can't be buried in their home country because flights have been suspended.
The hearse arrives in silence. There is only the driver of the funeral agency. Behind that no one cries. All relatives are in quarantine. The flowers on the coffin fill the emptiness of absence.
The deacon gives a blessing at the entrance if the family has requested it.
Then slowly the big black car reaches the burial place: some on the ground, some in a niche. Those who go to cremation arrive already wrapped inside the coffin with a biodegradable plastic material that avoids contagion.
For ground burials the coffin is covered with external zinc, for the niches it's internal, as the procedure for infective provides.
The cemetery operators are dressed in white overalls, with gloves and masks, they dig and move the bigger coffins with experience. Zinc pollutes.
They puncture the zinc lining if the deceased goes to the ground, for the burial niche there is no need, they leave the zinc.
The head of AFC Cemetery Services of the City of Turin, Giuseppina Zanero, films everything: from the arrival of the funeral until the last greeting with a mobile phone. She puts flowers on the empty grave and she'll be available to families to reassure them. They must know that their dead have been buried with dignity like everyone else.
Gravediggers become the narrators of these abnormal days, full of pits to be dug but without people to mourn their loved ones.
Their work has increased, somebody has been recalled from holidays to deal with the emergency of a record number of burials. They treat infected material and return home exhausted in the evening, hoping not to carry the virus with them.
The cemetery represents the community. Those deaths are everyone's deaths. Meanwhile, spring borns again all around.
The only possible funerals are on streaming.
In the Maria Madre dei Giovani church of Turin, every day there is a service on-line, all of them are dedicated to a deceased that hasn't got a proper funeral.
During the lockdown, on Sunday, this church has around 1.000 devices connected to follow their streaming. They are very well organised and equipped, with 2 recording studio, 2 cameras and a lighting system.
In this way the relatives have a link to share and a moment in front of their devices for elaborate their loss.
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