This Is Us

What a Zoom Funeral Taught Me About Death

As my daughters and I stared at a livestream of an open casket, I realized death is always remote

My eight-year-old saw her first dead body at my grandpa’s Zoom funeral. Zoom has been quite the portal of a platform for my kids. It’s where they go to take classes, talk to friends, and now, attend funerals.

My grandpa didn’t die of Covid-19, but he died during the Covid-19 era. He’d been in hospice for weeks after breaking his hip. Out-of-state visitors were not allowed in his facility so my mom, his out-of-state daughter, had to say goodbye to him over speakerphone. I did, too. It was awkward. I kept thinking of inappropriate jokes my grandpa would have laughed at if he could still laugh. You think the connection is bad now, Grandpa? Wait till you’re dead! He liked weird, dark humor. But it wasn’t just me, the phone, and him. Someone had to hold the phone. They were already witnessing a death on my behalf; I didn’t need to submit them to bad jokes, too. So I just told Grandpa I love him, my girls love him, and that I was so sorry we weren’t there to hold him as he left us. I should have made the joke.

My daughters and I sat around our kitchen table to attend his funeral. When you sign into a Zoom funeral, you are…