"Accompanying people at the end of life helps us answer fundamental questions."

Josep Antoni Boix Ferrer, head of the Spiritual and Religious Care Service (SAER) at Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu , experienced the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic intensely, when it was impossible for families to be present in the final moments of their loved ones. This impossibility created great confusion, frustration, and sadness for many families, who had to begin grieving without farewells and without the personal and social rituals necessary to navigate this difficult time.

"Globally," Boix explains, "millions of people believe that death is some kind of transition to another kind of existence. Whether you hold this belief or not, it is certainly a significant moment, in which inevitable questions arise that we must answer."

Health institutions sought and facilitated ways for families and those in their final moments to say goodbye. While mobile devices enabled some farewells, health institutions made significant efforts, as soon as possible, to facilitate the presence of at least one loved one in the final moments of many people who died from COVID-19.

"I remember the first in-person farewell I was able to attend," this professional recalls, "and it moves me. It was a daughter who was able to say goodbye to her mother. There was so much love, so much gratitude, so much life concentrated there, that I felt all the institutional and personal effort made to make this farewell moment possible was worthwhile."

The Right to Say Goodbye

Read more

Webinar

Should a similar situation arise again, Josep Antoni Boix is clear about the importance of having the necessary material and human resources to make these in-person farewells at the end of life possible. There are fundamental issues, such as these moments of parting, that, according to Boix, we must experience and reflect upon, asking ourselves the questions that arise: Did our loved one die peacefully? Were they at peace? Did they say any last words? Were we able to say what we needed to say? And, above all, considering their final moments, were we able to convey our love? Were we able to comfort our loved one, give them hope, courage, or serenity?

Amid the tragedy of all these COVID-19 deaths, many more moments of farewell, like the one Boix described, were possible. Moments in which "we perceive that life does not cease, the love, and the importance of all of us making these farewell moments possible, moments that characterize us as human beings and that we cannot deprive ourselves of."