In 2022, I thought a lot about Colleen and Bob

Published on 9 December 2022

In May 2020, I drove my husband and his sister behind 2 hearses carrying the bodies of their beloved mum and dad. It’s been 2 years. I’m only just allowing myself to think about that day and how it changed our family.  

Colleen and Bob died within 5 days of each other in a care home in Ilkley. They were 2 of the early victims. We did not yet know there would be hundreds of thousands more. They died before PCR testing centres were open. They died a long time before vaccinations were available.

They died after scientists had advised the government to act. 

This year, I’ve realised that the day of the funeral will forever be the marker that all future grotesquely surreal days will be measured against. And I’ve finally let myself recollect it.

We decide it’s for the best that our 7-year-old daughter doesn’t come with us. I don’t know if that was the right decision and we never will. She stays at my sister-in-law’s but she chooses to wear her best dress and I tell her Grandma would have loved what she was wearing. I know she would have.  

I’m driving to the funeral home but I don’t feel the power under my foot, or the wheel in my hand. Is this really happening? It’s like our brains won’t let us fully experience the horror because our heads will explode. I tell myself to get a grip – afterall, it’s not my parents. My role right now is to make sure everyone is ok. I swallow the grief many times and think about inane things like what sandwiches we’ll have later.

We get to the funeral home. My sister-in-law asks me to take some photos. I’m a photographer so this might feel comfortingly like the everyday. I say yes and then I wonder if it’s morally right. I have no idea. There’s no precedent for this but I take photos of the 2 coffins and vaguely wonder if – in these extenuating circumstances – some good might come out of taking the photos. Perhaps the photos will help frame what is happening. Perhaps they should be shared. Everybody should know that this is happening. Everybody should know this could happen to them.

Some people don’t believe this disease is real.

There’s a lady in the window of a flat next to the funeral home car park. She watches us. How many souls has she watched ride to the chapel from here? How many more will she watch in the coming year? I’ve thought a lot about how grounding it would be to have her viewpoint. I’ve wondered if she lives her life differently to the rest of us because our mortality is right under her nose. 

We get into the cars and if I feel sick to the bottom of my stomach. I can only imagine what my passengers felt. As we pull out of the car park behind the hearses the lady at the window gives us a thumbs up. It doesn’t sound like it but it was wholly appropriate. Her expression held great support and love. We nod our acknowledgements.

We turn left and it’s sunny and I watch the Yorkshire scenery crawl by. Dry stone walls divide green into property. That looks like a nice pub. There are lambs and birds. Lots of birds, lots of birdsong. Pockets of daffodils and bluebell carpets.

Concentrate. Don’t rear-end the hearse.

We get to the chapel in the cemetery. It’s probably the most people we have seen in one spot for many weeks. There are 7 of us for the service but people can watch it live on the internet.

I take some more photos.

The service goes on.

I have no idea how long it lasts or who spoke or what music plays but I think, well perhaps Colleen and Bob are together in death as they were in life. The vicar references this. Nobody really knows if they are though. The vicar doesn’t reference that.

The effect of that time and that day is everlasting. Yes, they were old. Yes, they had health issues. But that does not make their loss any easier to bear. I think our whole family feels the fragility of each of our lives.

I wish I could have saved my husband and his sister from this day and all this pain. I wish I could have protected our 7-year-old from this day and being exposed to all this pain. It’s made her more aware than she should be for her years and when she’s sad, she sometimes attributes it to missing her grandparents. It’s difficult to know if it is always that or just how she describes sadness for now.