Coronavirus limits force funeral homes to smaller and streaming services

With the guidance to keep crowds to a minimum, funeral directors are having to change how they help their communities remember the dead. Often, in small North Carolina towns, the deceased is well-known and many of the mourners are senior citizens, the group most at risk of death from coronavirus.

Allen Roberts and Justin Powell, co-owners of Rose and Graham funeral home in Benson, said they've been focusing on family-only services and planning to update technology that would allow mourners to participate in virtual visitation.

Funeral directing, they say, is a calling. "You're helping your neighbor in a time of need," Roberts said.

Stephen E. Davis, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Funeral Service, said families have mostly been understanding as funeral directors takes steps to honor the dead while also protecting the living.

"It's hard to look at families and say we have to limit the people that come to less than 100 people or less," Powell said.

"Everyone was welcome, everyone could be here, and all of a sudden, that has come to a half. We've having to do the best we can to serve them under the constraints. Everybody kind of knows everybody wants to come and pay their respects, too."

That number includes staff. Powell said at a funeral this week, when a 101st guest showed up, one of his staff members had to step out of the room so she could pay her respects.

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Board president Mark Blake said that the crisis brought on by the coronavirus reminds funeral directors to “exhibit the care and compassion that we always have in helping a family plan a funeral service. But we also have to assure the safety and health of those who want to attend a memorial service, a funeral, or a burial as well as our funeral service professionals and their employees who are involved in carrying out a service.”

"Please remember that these are recommendations or recommended guidelines; they are not binding on you. The Governor’s Executive Order is binding," he wrote.

"It's heartbreaking that people can't memorialize their loved ones they way they had imagined because of this health crisis," Davis said.

"And that life should be honored," Roberts said. "And that life should be celebrated, so yes, it is a sad time to see us limited by things such as this virus that allows us not to be able to properly honor the dead.

"So God called me. This is my ministry. Even though there are stressful days, stressful times like today, it was a calling."