‘I just ask God to help me’: Texas funeral home crushed by death as US COVID count nears 500,000 | The larger image

“It’s just mentally painful,” Pryor, 59, who runs a small funeral director with his wife Almika, told Reuters earlier this month.

The large number of coronavirus deaths has overwhelmed many American funeral homes. Some family businesses have dealt with an overwhelming caseload, with some recording the same number of deaths in a matter of months as they normally would in a full year, said Dutch Nie, spokesperson for the National Association of Funeral Directors. .

“Most funeral home directors know it’s a 24-hour, 365-day career, but you’re just not used to working every day during those hours,” Nie told Reuters.

The pandemic has profoundly changed the way Pryor has to operate. Overcrowded hospitals want bodies removed quickly. It was difficult to find qualified personnel, coffins and protective equipment. And each day brings a multitude of phone calls from families in pain and distress.

As the virus showed no signs of loosening its grip and deaths increased over the summer and fall, exhausted workers at Pryority Funeral Experience fell ill while others quit.

“People stop because they can’t take it mentally,” he said. “I pray to God – just give me the strength … I want to run away right away, to be honest … I’m concerned about my collapse so I’m just asking God to help me.”

Sometimes the stories he hears at work haunt him.

Like the one he was told when he answered a COVID-19 call during a recent weekend in The Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.

A young woman in her 30s had just died of complications from the virus, shortly after doctors performed a Caesarean section to save the lives of her twins as her condition deteriorated.

The next day, Pryor struggled to deal with tragedy, one of hundreds of thousands of people who marked a year of deep loss across the country and around the world.

“I slept with this last night and I hate it, you know, when you take them to bed,” he said.

Pryor said he had never been so busy as during the pandemic. The deaths the funeral home handled in 2020 were more than double those it would see in a normal year.

January has been a terrible month. Even though hospitalizations in Texas fell 10% last month from a 36% increase in December, coronavirus deaths rose 48%, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.

“I got rhythm and I turn people down because there isn’t much I can do,” said Pryor.

His team of four full-time and eight part-time employees are feeling the strain, he said.

Embalmers and others who come in direct contact with bodies and are at greater risk of contagion have been difficult to find, Pryor said. And coffins are rare due to the pandemic. On a Thursday earlier this month, Pryor’s uncle drove four hours from Dallas to deliver eight.

The work is so demanding, said Pryor, that there is little time left to do the most essential personal tasks, like cooking or spending time with his 10-year-old son.

While caring for those who have lost loved ones in their community, Pryor’s family has faced their own grief. The virus took hold of his nephew and uncle while his wife lost her cousin and aunt to COVID-19.

Pryor grew up in rural Texas, the youngest of six children and the only sibling not to attend separate schools. His first contact with the funeral business dates back to the late 1970s, when he helped illiterate members of his community with their mail and bills at the local funeral home on the first of every month.

“I have become addicted to helping people when they need it most,” said Pryor.

Ever since he started his own business in 1984, celebrating life even in death has always been central to his profession, he said. But the coronavirus pandemic has turned everything upside down, making it even more difficult to help people get through the grieving process.

In late January, Pryor and his team handled the funeral arrangements for Gregory Blanks, a 50-year-old COVID-19 victim who ran a heating and air conditioning business in the Houston area. He was a huge fan of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

Under current restrictions to prevent infections, only a limited number of family and friends were able to attend the funeral at the San Felipe Community Cemetery where a preacher spoke next to a table lined with baseball caps. baseball for the Cowboys and other Texas teams.

Dressed in a mask bearing the logo of her husband’s company, Lila, Blanks’ wife, solemnly watched some of Pryor’s employees lower the coffin into the ground.