This post has been translated from my French post with Google translation, feel free to let me know if there are some grammatical mistakes because I am human
Thanks God, we have finally left the year 2020 behind us. I think we are all happy that it is over. I would even go so far as to say that it would be great to find a way to just erase the year 2020 from our memory. As far as I'm concerned, if I could suffer from some form of amnesia that would make me believe that 2020 had not existed, and that I will go from 2019 to 2021.
2020 sucked ! Everything was shut down and we had to be confined inside our house, doing the groceries had become a real ordeal or an obstacle course, we had to queue up everywhere, get away from people when we meet them on the sidewalk as if they were lepers, we suffocated under masks, we gained weight because we ate more and we moved less, we endured the children and the husband while teleworking. And as if that weren't enough, either we've caught COVID or lost a loved one to COVID.
As far as I'm concerned, 2020 will remain in my memory as the year during which for the first time in my life I was doubly bereaved. Indeed, I lost my two uncles, one on the maternal side and one on the paternal side, they both died outside the country and for reasons other than COVID.
I lost my paternal uncle in June. My maternal uncle was hospitalized at the beginning of November and died a month later. He was buried around mid December and unfortunately I was unable to attend the funeral. I have more precise memories of my maternal uncle because unlike my paternal uncle, he has always been a part of my life, from my childhood to my adolescence until my adult life.
The loss of my two uncles made me aware of the challenges of experiencing grief in times of COVID. How many stories have we not heard from people who have lost a loved one to Covid and who have not been able to kiss and say goodbye. And this even if you lived in the same city as this loved one because physical contact was prohibited. So imagine when the geographical distance comes into consideration, no way to say goodbye, no way to cry with your loved ones or to console them. This further complicates the experience of grief and makes it even more painful.
This stupid Covid has forced us to do things differently. Because of the geographic distance, I grieved far from my family without any possibility of supporting them physically and my only way to keep in touch was by telephone.
Zoom ? My mother doesn't know it. She's already having trouble taking a selfie and she relies on her 12-year-old granddaughter to show her how to handle her smartphone or tablet. When I asked one of my brothers to do a live video feed of the funeral ceremony, he asked me: “What is a live feed?”
No, it's not because I have used the English term, it's just that he really didn't know what it was.
So, you can understand how difficult and complicated it is to grieve from a distance.
Even if there was no COVID, it would also have been difficult for me to join my family because my employer only allows me 3 days of bereavement leave in the event of the death of an uncle. Unfortunately, I can't really take advantage of these 3 days because of the geographical distance. Just to travel from Canada to Europe, I would have already used 2 days out of the 3 days off.
However in times of COVID, I consider myself lucky to have been able to take advantage of these 3 days of bereavement leave.
As I work in the school system, I do not have a day off because school holidays are our holidays. However, my employer grants me 5 days of special leave which I am not entitled to take consecutively.
I know, it's complicated. Basically, you always have to hope that a family emergency requiring your presence only occurs during school holidays. But we all know that it's impossible to predict when the emergency will arise.
As far as I am concerned, in this situation, my luck was that my uncle's funeral took place a few days before the start of the school holidays. So I was able to take advantage of my 3 days of bereavement leave and start my grieving process without having to worry about having to go back to work right away.
The COVID, the geographic distance, the use of technology made my grieving experience quite special.
But it made me realize that for some employees whose families reside outside of Canada, not having the benefits that allow them to obtain bereavement leave would be catastrophic. But if the employer allows them to take bereavement leave, it is important that they understand that bereavement is experienced differently depending on the cultures; and that if the employee's family is geographically far away, the employer will need to be very flexible in allowing multiple days of bereavement leave.
Since 3 days of mourning is not enough when traveling from Canada to a country in Europe, Asia or Africa, this risks creating a moral dilemma as the employee will often be forced to make difficult choices such as not to attend the funeral or simply to hope to have an understandable employer who will allow him to use his annual leave. Unfortunately, not all employers have the means to be flexible with their employees.
Did you know that according to the 2016 census (a new census will take place in 2021):
The Canadian immigrant population represented 21.9% of the total population, or more than one in five Canadians.
That 7 of the top 10 countries of birth of recent immigrants were from Asian countries : the Philippines, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and South Korea.
More Africans than Europeans immigrated to Canada for the first time : In all, 13.4% of immigrants who arrived between 2011 and 2016 were from Africa.
Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Cameroon were the five countries of birth of the most recent immigrants.
Statistics Canada projects that the proportion of the Canadian population born abroad could reach from 24.5% to 30% in 2036.
Those figures provided by Statistics Canada make me understand that it is highly probable that an employer will have an employee, who will have no choice but to travel thousands of km from Canada to organize a funeral, or to attend a funeral, or to look after estate, or cleaning all the stuffs of a deceased family member.
I admit that I am grateful to have a job with benefits. However, I cannot help but worry about those whose families are outside of Canada and who do not have a job with benefits. How are they going to do it? What kinds of tough choices are they going to have to make? These are relevant questions that we must ask ourselves and try to find solutions.
Today I wanted to blog about my bereavement, but I can’t conclude without dedicating the following quote to all the families who have lost a loved one in this time of COVID:
“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well “ Buddha
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