CHICAGO, Ill. – Tucked deep in the obituary for Charles Recka was an announcement that a Mass celebrating his 87 years of life “will be held at a later date.” Such notices are increasing amid the coronavirus pandemic, as an untold number of burials around the globe go forward with nothing more than a priest, a funeral home employee and a single loved one.
While in some places, bodies of people who have died from COVID-19 are stacking up at hospitals and people are buried quickly in the clothes they died in, Recka's death from an unrelated long illness tells a different story: One of families whose grief just happened to arrive amid a pandemic that has them terrified to even share a church pew with loved ones, let alone hug them.