One year into the pandemic, the USA TODAY Network in New England sought to document the intimacy of a funeral home director’s work amid the coronavirus.
But even he is exhausted. After the year’s onslaught of deaths, separated from both aspects of his business – from the living by virtual consultations and drive-by funerals, and from the dead through layers of PPE – his “emotional cup” has been drying up. “He’s dedicated, thorough, caring,” said Connor Martel, Pelkey’s funeral service apprentice. “He doesn’t really settle for anything less than 100%, and that’s exemplified in everything that does.”
Pelkey, who is 54, recalled an unprecedented day, before the pandemic truly crystallized, when two elderly couples, both from local nursing homes, arrived within 24 hours. Those early changes seeped into how Pelkey and his staff not only worked, but lived. Staff began sleeping at the funeral home, anticipating the phone calls. Pelkey himself spent an entire month staying in a nearby hotel, quarantining from his wife who is a trauma nurse in New Hampshire.
In the embalming room – with frigid steel and bodies under glossy plastic – Pelkey points to a table organized with respirators, protective gowns and disinfectant liquids. All “COVID stuff.” The CDC says biosafety is critical “for personnel who are in contact with human remains with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.” Funeral home staff are urged to avoid unnecessary manipulation of a body that may cause air to expel from the lungs, and to perform regular, enhanced environmental decontamination.
Before the pandemic, it was customary that families would meet with him in-person to discuss service options and fill out paperwork. That was an initial bonding opportunity, stripped by COVID-19. What the virus has robbed from families in terms of memorializing their loved ones destroys Pelkey. Someone only loses a father, sister or husband once, he says. There are no do-overs.On a cold day in February, a thick, pillowy snow falls softly on a black caravan as it twists through a cemetery’s grounds. Coming to a slow stop in front of a fresh grave, Pelkey exits the hearse, placing the Korean War veteran’s urn on a wooden stand.
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