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'It was quite intimate': a tiny funeral for a big family man

Postcards from the pandemic is a new series that looks at how everyday Australians are coping with immense changes coronavirus has brought to their lives.

Bert Cattermole, riddled with cancer, switched on the TV to find out the latest news about the coronavirus. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, was announcing a further tightening of restrictions, including the “very difficult” decision to limit attendance at funerals to 10 people.

Bert turned to family members caring for him and said without fuss: “Oh well, that’s you seven [children] and three more.”

Early the next morning, Bert, 82, died in his recliner chair. For the Cattermole family, like others throughout the country and the world, Covid-19 has brought a further layer of grief to losing a close family member. It’s the “no touching” that seems cruel. No embraces, no arm around a shoulder, no comfort for the weeping.

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Jane Cattermole, 58, the fourth of Bert’s eight children (one sibling is not in contact with the family), helped look after her father at her sister Ann’s house in the final days.

For such a large family – Bert had 24 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren – it was especially difficult. Visits were limited to the adult children.

“Some of the grandkids did visit but mainly we were strict about that,” says Jane. “We FaceTimed so the grandkids could have a chat with him when he perked up a little bit. Most of them rang up and said goodbye to him over video.”

The limit of 10 at a funeral is extraordinary but Australia has so far imposed less severe restrictions than some countries. In Italy and New Zealand funerals are banned.

Bert had no religious convictions, but for those who do, the rituals around burial are ancient. Muslims, for instance, wash the body, wrap it in a shroud, and hold communal prayer.

Under Covid-19 health department guidelines, close handling of the body is not recommended but it can be done under strict conditions. They advise that families should not kiss the deceased.

The days after someone dies are always strange. Apart from the emotion and exhaustion of it, there’s so much to be done. The siblings comforted each other from afar, and the meeting with the celebrant was on FaceTime.

The funeral was held in Baldivis, a suburb of Perth, at 10am last Friday. Ten cream chairs were set up in the chapel, all spaced apart. Jane was the first in, followed at a distance by nine others (the Western Australian government allowed 10 family members, plus two officials). There were seven of Bert’s children – Margaret, Paul, Ann, Jane, Andrew, Angela and James – and three of their partners.

The celebrant, Kevin Clune, told the tiny gathering that “without the needs of our current stage of containing Covid-19, this chapel would be overflowing”.

During this crisis, modern technology is helping maintain connection, even at funerals. It was livestreamed so family and friends could watch.

Every life is unique, every family complicated. Jane’s eulogy outlined her father’s life, from his days as a Yorkshire coalminer, marrying Mary at a young age, and bringing their rowdy mob of kids to Australia in 1975 as “10-pound poms”. Mary died a few years ago and Bert nursed her to the end.

A kidney donation from a 13-year-old boy saved Bert’s life and he savoured the two decades it gave him. He was a “good, decent, fair and generous man”, Jane says. When he was encouraged to go off all drugs towards the end, to surrender to death, he refused to stop taking the anti-rejection medication that protected his kidney. “He wanted to honour that little boy and his family to the end.”

Her father had at first struggled to accept Jane’s and another sister’s sexuality, treating their same-sex partners with coldness. That changed, and in his final days of life he apologised for his early intolerance. “He wanted us to know that he loved us and always had.”

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The rituals of a funeral were all there. Bert’s closest friends, Olive and Noel Grafton, could not attend owing to the restrictions, but Angela read out a letter from them to honour more than 40 years of friendship. A poem was read on behalf of the grandchildren. Bert’s favourite song, Tom T Hall’s Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine, filled the chapel.

Towards the end of the service, Jane reached over and threw her arms around Ann. It was against the rules but Jane does not regret it. “Ann just cried the whole way through,” she says. “She was the one whose house he was in. It was so sad, and she just lost it a little bit.”

One day, when all this is over, the Cattermole family plans a big celebration of Bert’s life; when all the family and friends can be there, and everyone can tell stories and hug each other. They understand that it has to wait.

“We never would have expected his last days and funeral would occur this way,” Jane says. “Other generations have had to deal with different hardships and we’ve just got to deal with this.”

The family’s biggest fear was that the funeral would somehow seem makeshift, not a “proper” funeral. But it felt real.

“I actually thought it was quite beautiful. It was quite intimate ... It was kind of strangely perfect to me. It was just us and it was just fine.”

We’d like to hear your story about how you are managing during this crisis. Email: postcards@theguardian.com