For the past—God! How long has it been, now? Nine months?
For the past nine months, I’ve experienced theoretical anger on behalf of all the poor people stuck in nursing homes (and by stuck, I mean, “imprisoned.” Other appropriate terms might be “restrained,” “locked up,” “captive,” “trapped,” “kidnapped,” “confined,” and “incarcerated,” and a host of other terrible synonyms), separated from their loved ones, their friends, and the ability to leave.
Then, a few months ago, my grandma joined the ranks of the imprisoned; having worn out my aunt’s ability to care for her, and being unable to stay in my parents’ house (it has stairs, which don’t mesh well with her reduced mobility), her only option was to move to a beautiful, private room in a care home. And she was fine with it—right up until the moment when she found out that once moved, she wouldn’t be able to leave. Like, ever. And no one would be able to actually visit her in person (I mean, unless you include sitting on the other side of glass trying to shout to another person who is most likely wearing a mask and who won’t be able to hear you, nor you them into the definition of “in person.” But you don’t. I mean, right?).
“You might as well put me in prison!” she shouted. I mean, I wasn’t there, but I know my Grandma’s temper well enough, so when my mom recounted the story to me…I knew how it played out.
Naturally, my grandma was incensed. For weeks—again, my Grandma has an Irish temper (is that xenophobic?) and is definitely comfortable with carrying a grudge. But in the end, she didn’t have a choice.
And that’s where my anger went from theoretical to personal. I know how awful it feels to not have a choice. To be railroaded into something that you are strongly averse to and to feel like you have no agency to say “No.” (Ask me about my surgery some time.)
My Grandma is 80-something years old. She has slowly declined over the past decade and now suffers from mobility issues and the onset of some kind of age-related dementia. She clearly is not able to live on her own. But maybe she doesn’t want to be locked in a private room in the back corner of a nursing home full of absolutely no one she knows or is in any way related to. Maybe, at 80-something, she’s lived long enough to make her own choices about how she wants to live—or, for that matter, die. I mean, I get it: there are other people in the home who may not want to put themselves at risk of contracting the Scamdemic. But then, why does Grandma have to live (and die) all by herself because they don’t want to put themselves at risk? Why is it she who has to give?
I mean, we’re the human race who has conceived the iPhone, an artificial pancreas, surgery performed by robots, and yet we can’t somehow conceive of a way to allow those who wish to live out their lives in contact with their loved ones, whilst still receiving the care they need to do so while simultaneously allowing those who are truly fearful (or at risk) of succumbing to the Scamdemic to remain safe(ish)?
Can we seriously not do that? Or have just become such a risk-averse society that the totality of the human race must now give way to the very lowest common denominator and give up the very things that give their lives purpose, meaning, and joy so that the rest of society can shutter themselves in their basement and cower from…Life.
Because that’s pretty much the only alternative.
Epilogue: Since the writing of this post, I’ve had another intensely personal experience with nursing homes, and it’s certainly not made me any less disgusted at our current—for lack of a better descriptor—F’d up process.
I’ll talk about it another time.
