(Sarcastic) Opinion: Honor heroics and sacrifice of long-term care patients during pandemic

Inspired by a recent ridiculous opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution

Parody. Both this version and (has to be) the original.

The below blog post was inspired by Maureen Downey at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, who just published this recent opinion piece “thanking” schoolchildren for their sacrifice of making the world safer for everyone else.

Obviously, no children were ever asked for this sacrifice, which we know now has resulted in 1-2 years of in some cases severe learning loss (or what sanctimonious apologists call “loss of social advantage”), mental health problems, and increased obesity and social retardation - all for nothing (because countries like Sweden, as well as much of Europe, which never locked down their children had even better pandemic outcomes than we did).

Anyways, enjoy. And screw you Maureen.

*****

For a few years now, our nation’s older adults have borne many of the sacrifices in the battle against COVID-19. They’ve been kept sealed away in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and homes, denied access to grandchildren’s’ graduation ceremonies, dinners with families, and for many (particularly nursing home patients) - seeing families entirely, aside from on a view screen, or behind a window.

As the era of assessing impacts of the fallout from the pandemic are here in the form of mental health statistics, it’s a good time to say thank you to the sacrifices our nation’s facility-dwelling older people during this season of gratitude.

One way to help old people write the narrative of experience is to teach the practice of gratitude. Make sure they can be thankful for what they do have!

Dear Grandma-

What a ride it’s been the past few years! The ups and downs of living in a worldwide pandemic. Well, you did it. We’re coming to the end of the pandemic, school is back to normal for the most part and we’re getting back to going to restaurants again and seeing our families.

We’re still not, of course, still seeing much of you at all - because we’re still required to wear masks, and test prior to seeing you. Although earlier this year they stopped requiring us to be vaccinated, we still really don’t want to be accused of killing you should you get sick - so we’re just playing it safe, and I’m sure you understand that we’re all just doing our part. So even though you miss us, thank you for your sacrifice!

• To the grandparent like you who missed the funeral of their old childhood friend, to the grandmother who never got to go out to the graduation dinner with their grandchild who graduated after 13 years of arduous work; thank you.

• To the great-aunt and great-uncle who has never met their three year old great-nieces and great-nephews, to the depressed husband who has only seen his wife behind glass for the last three years, thank you.

• To the extraverted, 90-plus year old resident and widower Bob who’s reason for living was to engage in the daily, three times per day ritual of social eating (but has withered away, eating alone in his room for the last 2.5+ years), to Mabel, who is 80-plus years old and has dementia with behavior problems who has been unable to understand people or recognize their caregivers since the universal mask mandate has been put into place in nursing homes - we thank you.

All the big things and all the little things you’ve given up mean something to us. We see them and we are grateful. We know that you have been shaken to the core and we are with you. Although it seems like the sacrifice has been all borne on your shoulders and that it’s been designed pretty much to make us feel better about ourselves and without pretty much any thought to your well-being, well, we do this for you. Not for us. Really. Believe us. Really. Really!

Thank you for adjusting your lives so drastically that it’s shortened your lives due to sheer loneliness and failure to thrive - but at least it’s delayed your first encounter with a disease that’s now so mild it rivals the flu. Thank you for all the ways you have worn the masks and not complained (well, actually, you have - but some of you are so impaired and demented we were just able to write it off as “behavior problems.”)

Thank you for letting us feel virtuous for all the sacrifices you were forced to make, even though we never asked a single one of you if you wanted to make them. Thank you for being OK with being treated almost exactly like prisoners for in some cases, over a year, complete with prison-like window visits, plexiglass barriers, home (room) detention, and guards at the door.

On behalf of all of us who are allowed to feel really good about ourselves for all the things we forced you to do, which made your already-short lives even shorter, more miserable, and more lonely, without much evidence they accomplished anything concretely healthy for you - we thank you.

You have sacrificed so much. That sounds a lot like the heroes we read about in school, doesn’t it (I mean, if you can think of prisoners in an Erving Goffman-esque total institution as heroes, at least)? Yes, yes, I think it does. It sounds more convincing the more I say it to myself.

Doing something when it’s hard, difficult, lonely at times for a cause greater than oneself, despite you never being asked, simply because we say it’s “for your own good” - well, that’s pretty cool. Putting the good of the many above the good of oneself. You’re not that important, in the grand scheme of things anyways.

You were not the reason or cause for the tough times. It wasn’t your fault. It just happened. We didn’t actually do anything to you. It wasn’t us. It was “the pandemic’s fault.” Again, if I say this over and over again, eventually it becomes true in my head!

The world can be a scary and unpredictable place, but you helped it become a better place because we got to visit all of our anxieties and fears on you, and you just sucked it all up like nursing home and assisted living residents always do - you kind of have to. You are truly a wonderful example of what bravery and courage look like - you take what panicked, disorganized healthcare professionals force on you and when they tell you it’s for your own good, and you don’t fight back (at least, not much).

At some point we will get back to treating your generation with respect, and start listening to your needs again - we will at some point start addressing your own self-defined best interests again as people.

We will at some point start treating you as grown adults, with human needs for contact, for seeing faces, for making connections, and with the recognition that you are at the end of your life and that you require comfort and connection, typically, much more so than you require futilely heroic-seeming, “mitigations” that end up hurting you much more than they help (and only allow us to feel better about ourselves).

At some point we will do that - but only when we are good and ready, because honestly, what you’ve sacrificed over the last 2.5+ years has been much more about slaking our anxieties and fears, and has really not much to do with thinking about your plight as an older person, living in a nursing home, at the end of your life.

I have seen many signs displayed throughout the pandemic, all inspiring, encouraging and beautiful (many of which you’ve even made). “Thank you, essential workers; Thank you, teachers; Thank you, health care professionals; Thank you, researchers.”

But yeah, you’re never going to see a sign saying “Thank you, older people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.” Because, you see - it was all done *for* you - so even though your lives may now be more miserable, more meaningless, shorter, and more depressing - ultimately, we don’t really need to thank you. Honestly - scratch that.

From the bottom of our hearts - you need to thank all of us. Because we are all that awesome for what we did for you.

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash