Stuff Digital Edition

Rollcall of grief: Remembering those lost to Covid-19

An iman, a grandmother, and ‘‘a real Kiwi bloke’’ are some of the 52 people who died in NZ from Covid. By Virginia Fallon.

Jocelyn Finlayson’s funeral was held a year after she died.

It was like reliving her death, her son Will says. He hadn’t got over the loss in the months inbetween, of course, he just got on with parenting his young children and running a business.

But at her funeral the grief hit him like a sucker punch, a brandnew hurt after a year of mourning. Speaking about it one year later feels much the same. ‘‘I was hugging her when she died.’’

If you’re looking purely at the numbers, New Zealand seems to have been pretty lucky so far.

At the time of writing, 2890 people have died in Australia from strains of the coronavirus, 885,000 have died in the US, and the UK’s toll stands at 153,000.

Aotearoa’s death toll currently stands at 52, a far cry from those staggering overseas number, but 52 too many for the grieving families left behind.

Most of the New Zealanders lost to Covid are known only by their ages, locations and genders as recorded by the Ministry of Health. Some families have kept the names of their loved ones to themselves, fearing reprisals or misinformation or simply to stay private. Others shared.

In the days after Jocelyn’s death Will spoke to reporters in an attempt to urge the country to take the virus seriously. Two years later he reckons that for the most part they do, so now he’s talking about who she was.

Jocelyn loved champagne and the royals. She was a staunch defender of her own family and friends, and had recently gone swimming for the first time in decades: ‘‘It’s amazing what a grandchild can convince you to do.’’

A few years before her death she’d traipsed around Europe with her precious family, having a ball.

One of the things that irks Will has been the attitude towards older people who have died, almost as if it’s acceptable if you’re considered elderly. Like many others Jocelyn was recorded as having an underlying health condition, ‘‘but who doesn’t when they get a bit older? She was 62, but that’s not old, she was having the time of her life.’’

When Jocelyn died in April 2020 she was the youngest person in New Zealand to lose their life to the virus. She died with her husband and Will at her side.

‘‘We kind of said it was OK for her to go. It felt a lot more peaceful than I thought.’’

Since New Zealand’s first Covid death in March 2020, many families have shared details of their loved ones and the grief of their loss.

Anne Guenole was the first. Remembered as a kind and caring woman, the much loved 74-year-old mowed her own lawn and chopped wood.

There was George Hollings, a resident of Rosewood Rest Home in Christchurch, who died on May 2, 2020. Described by his family as a ‘‘real Kiwi bloke, a rough diamond

who loved his deer stalking’’, he was in his 80s.

Alan Te Hiko, the country’s 23rd death, was an avid Warriors supporter. His brother Nigel Hauriama Te Hiko, a revered Raukawa leader and historian had died a fortnight earlier at 54.

When Shanti Kumari died in November 2021 her grandson said his family’s grief was compounded by not being able to properly view her body. They had to make do with viewing the coffin from a distance for ‘‘less than a minute’’ to pay their final respects.

New grandfather Peter Griffiths had just celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary when he died on November 24, 2021. He was a member of the Mt Albert Lions rugby league club for more than 30 years, and was in his late 50s.

Chrisanthos Tzanoudakis, 87, who died in April 2020, was known as Christo and had been father of the groom at the Bluff wedding on March 21. He lived in Wellington for 50 years after emigrating from Crete, working on the docks for years before buying a fish and chip shop.

Then there are the others we know a little about, like number 28, a hardworking man who made his five children happy. Or number 29, the father of seven, an iman at an Auckland Masjid, who escaped Afghanistan more than 20 years ago. The 68-year-old died while isolating at home on November 21.

Number 27 was a woman who was the backbone of her local marae; and a ‘‘normal, everyday guy’’ also died in his Auckland apartment while isolating.

They are only some of the unnamed 52, and while we don’t know much more about them, sometimes the tiniest details make for the most devastating reading.

In December it was announced a child under 10 had become the country’s youngest Covid-19 case to die. The Ministry of Health website shows he was a little Ma¯ ori boy.

News Two Years Of The Pandemic

en-nz

2022-01-23T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-23T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281711208027274

Stuff Limited