William Chen has lived in New Zealand for more than 40 years. In July, he lost his mother in Malaysia. Photo / Michael Craig
William Chen has lived in New Zealand for more than 40 years. In July, he lost his mother in Malaysia. Photo / Michael Craig
Support services are seeing more people seeking help with grief and expecting more complex cases of loss as the pandemic rolls on.
William Chen's 88-year-old mother was already fading when they last spent time together at home in Malaysia in February. It didn't make the dreaded phone call any easier when it came in July.
"It was an emptiness, like something that was part of me was gone forever," said Chen, a designer by training and former art director at Metro Magazine.
At the time, New Zealand had come out of its first lockdown into alert level 1, but flights from Auckland to his hometown Kuching were few and far between, and fares were astronomical. Quarantine on arrival in Malaysia also meant that by the time he got out, "everything would be over", Chen recalled.
Kaitlyn Jiang's loss came with no warning at all. In early March, just as the world was waking up to the reality of a global pandemic, her father died of a sudden heart attack back home in Shanghai. A few weeks later, New Zealand was to declare a state of national emergency.
A full-time mother of three, Jiang's youngest was six months old then, breastfeeding, and didn't have a passport yet. Her options: stay put in Auckland to care for her three children, or leave them for weeks while she made the long-distance journey home (and back, plus quarantine) to say goodbye to her father. Born within the three-and-half-decade span of China's one-child policy, Jiang was her parents' only child.
She eventually stayed in New Zealand. "I felt like I'd let my father down," she said, tears welling up behind her glasses, "I should have been there, with my mum at the time when she needed me the most."
Jiang and Chen's stories of losing loved ones overseas and not being able to say goodbye are increasingly heard in a Covid-19 world of travel restrictions and border closures.
Support services are seeing more people seeking help with grief and loss this year, particularly in the months coming out of lockdown - a 40 per cent increase year-on-year in June alone at the Grief Centre. The charity is expecting more complex cases of people and families dealing with multiple layers of loss - not just bereavement but also job loss and separation from loved ones - as the pandemic persists.
Unprocessed grief and loss underpin a significant portion of mental health and addiction issues in New Zealand, says Trudie Vos, Grief Centre's general manager, "Ask any frontline clinician and they'll tell you."
"What we don't do enough as a society is talk about loss," she said, calling for discussion to normalise and validate loss of all kinds, to support people to process grief in a healthy way.
Experts say bereavement can manifest as symptoms of depression, like loss of appetite, change in sleep patterns, and losing interest in enjoyable things and activities. This means a grieving person could still function day-to-day, but not at an optimal level. "You may not fit the diagnostic criteria for depression, but still be significantly affected by grief and loss," said Kelly Feng, director of Asian Family Services.
William Chen's parents paddling on the Maong River in Kuching, Malaysia circa 1970s. Photo / Supplied
William and his mother celebrating Christmas at home in 2018. Photo / Supplied
Mum taught him how to cook. Photo / Michael Craig
Being far away and not having the chance to say goodbye also means many do not feel a sense of closure, and end up carrying that grief and guilt for a long time, she adds.
Jiang, the grieving mother-of-three, can identify. "It's been like a dream, like my father's death never happened because I wasn't there." In between caring for her three girls and running a household on not enough sleep, she is worried about her mother in China, waiting for the day New Zealand's borders re-open.
In the months after his mother's death, Chen took to cooking her Chinese-Malaysian dishes he grew up eating. His friends were surprised. They had known William for years, but had never seen him cook. They were a strong network of friends who brought him out for meals, cooked for him, and rallied around him at his time of need.
"You need to be able to talk about it," Chen said. "Find something to do to remember them by."
For him, a Malaysian at heart, it was food.
Need help?
Asian Family Services 0800 862 342 (Mon-Fri 9am-8pm) Grief Centre 0800 331 333 (Mon-Fri 9.30am-4.30pm) 1737 Call or text, available 24/7 Rural Support Trust: 0800 787 254 Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7) Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7) Youthline: 0800 376 633 Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7) Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm) Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)
