Meg Bernhard writes about one family’s struggle to transport a casket during the pandemic: “What was already a fraught process has become even more convoluted in the COVID-19 era.”
On a gray January morning, Santos Torres III, a thirty-year-old courier for Bergen Funeral Service, in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, caught a ride to the French consulate in Manhattan. Normally Torres takes a train into New York, where he spends the day traversing the city carrying a messenger bag filled with death certificates, cash for notary and consular fees, letters from doctors, and other documents detailing the transportation and burial arrangements for the recently deceased.
Sending bodies across borders is a complex process, requiring a combination of notarizations, translated apostilles, health-department authorizations, burial permits, letters that certify bodies do not carry infectious diseases, and other official sign-offs.
Enzo, an internationally ranked squash player who competed for the French junior national team as a teen-ager, had moved to Canton to play at the American collegiate level. He was a “magician” on the court, said Grégory, a coach who, otherwise demure when speaking with me, lit up when the conversation turned to his son’s athletic abilities. A “showman,” Jennifer added. He was slender and muscular, with highlighted hair that tapered near his neck and a constellation of piercings in his ears.
Connors invited me to his family’s Hasbrouck Heights funeral home, a two-story house across from a Catholic school in a suburban neighborhood about twelve miles west of Manhattan. Connors, a third-generation funeral worker, spent childhood afternoons in the building, and eventually started working there as a young adult, delivering bodies and documents for shipments.
In another room, Abraham Zorrilla, the company’s assistant shipping coördinator at the time, scrolled through notes on past and present cases. “Called DR to fax over COVID letter on Monday.” “Overnight to Nigerian consulate on Tuesday.” “Still waiting for cemetery approval.” Zorrilla rattled off the destination countries for cases he was overseeing that week: New Caledonia, Mexico, Poland, Albania, Guatemala.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Nissan Qashqai 2022 long-term review | AutocarLong-term update: have the few minor niggles our man has uncovered tarnished his early impressions of the new Nissan Qashqai?
Read more »
Drug-resistant bacteria evolved on hedgehogs long before the use of antibioticsA standoff between bacteria and antibiotic-producing fungi living on hedgehogs may have led to the rise of one type of MRSA some 200 years ago.
Read more »
The Long Wait for Community Solar in Washington StateIn the state of Washington, advocates hope that the third time’s the charm for passing community solar legislation. For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Mason Rolph, President of
Read more »
Kia Niro EV long-term review, Part 9 | Car Reviews | Auto123Auto123 puts the Kia Niro EV to the long-term test. Today, part 9, as we analyze the effect of cold weather on EV batteries. Fact or fiction?
Read more »
A pre-pandemic U.S. job market is a long way offThe U.S. job market is still nursing itself back to health two years after the Covid-19 pandemic began. Employers added an average of 537,000 jobs per month in 2021, and the jobless rate fell to 3.9% in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. Those are healthy trends. Yet the economy remains off-kilter.
Read more »