Daily Times

Gathered together via Zoom, friends and relatives of Wahida and Fazal Rahman watched from afar as the beloved couple were buried in Pakistan, days after they were killed in the PIA plane crash.

For many who lost loved ones in the May 22 tragedy, grief has been compounded by the coronavirus, which has made travel to funerals impossible and attendance dangerous.

The Rahmans – married 53 years – were among 97 people killed when the Pakistan International Airlines Airbus plummeted into a Karachi neighbourhood, killing all but two people on board.

“The most instinctual human response to grief is to hold on to somebody and hug somebody,” said Adil Rahman, one of the couple’s four sons, who spells his name slightly differently than his parents.

“Covid has stripped us from that.”

Instead, Rahman watched the burial of his 80-year-old father and mother – who would have turned 75 on Friday – from his Missouri home in the US, where he works in IT.

“Draped in the Pakistani flag, adorned with beautiful flowers, my parents came home for the last time and I said my farewell over Zoom,” Rahman wrote on Twitter.

“They were beautiful and graceful till the end.”

Like many other nations Pakistan has closed its borders to international travellers in an effort to contain the deadly disease.