Covid-19 is a test. Let’s not fail it
Covid-19 lays things bare, uncovers that which culture, clouded vison or memory has glossed over. It is, in many ways, a two-sided gift, one that shows us our better angels and one side that exposes those that sport horns.
Finding resources to stay the course, to stay home, distancing ourselves so that we save lives, is inconvenient, boring at times and sometimes sad, sometimes frightening. We have found many ways to cope not only at home but also communally to assist those for whom this distancing is more difficult. We affect not only the communities in which we live, but also the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and hospital housekeeping staff that are fighting the fight for those affected. It is a challenge but one we can meet. Careful adherence to the scientifically delineated distancing advisories, unleashing creativity for work and home schooling and being present to distant others in creative ways are measures of a mature populace. For all there is sacrifice of one sort or another. Through individual action and that of local and national government, we can weather this historic episode. Yes, we can.
Finding out that there are those who value money more than life, others’ lives, is disheartening. I remember when President Kennedy was shot, as I grieved for my president, I was also grieving for my naïve beliefs that this thing, this assassination was not a thing of the past of time when we were less, a less that allowed the translation of dissatisfaction into violence against those with whom we disagree. Finding out that the ideas that spawned this horror were still extant then was more than disconcerting. I was 23 years old then.
Fifty seven years later, I am still caught unprepared. After all these years, all that I have learned about the good and the not good that people do, I am still hurt, shocked, when there are those who think that the lives of the vulnerable and the not vulnerable are disposable in favor of the bottom line. Instead of using the creativity that is a mark of American ingenuity, these groups resort to a display of firearms and threats demanding a return to work without regard for the lives that this return will no doubt claim. Money means more than life. It means more than the lives of parents, grandparents, vulnerable people of any age and the health care professionals who will be faced with the care of the sick and dying that this return to work will create. It is “me” before “you.” There is no “us.” It is the ultimate example of a disposable culture.
In thinking about what I would write this week, I explored some of the hundreds of old pieces already published and I found the following. It was written almost ten years ago, but could have been written any time. It holds, for me, a picture of the what being human means, the power of love, of connection and the professional healers trained to be present to the vulnerable, to heal and to mourn without breaking.
I celebrate that which is good and hold hope that the naysayers, the bottom liners, the users of intimidation and violence find the love they sorely need, remembering that today the dying die without their loved ones by their side.
“There was an agitated male voice floating above, sometimes mixed in with the sounds of a busy medical/surgical floor that morning. His was an anxious if not an angry voice. After a year-plus of working as a volunteer patient advocate, it was not unusual to find emotions close to the surface among patients and visitors. Being in a hospital, with few exceptions, is stressful.
The strident voice came from an elderly gentleman, carrying the wrinkles of many years in clothing that looked almost as old as their wearer. He was talking, no, he was yelling at a woman in a bed that had been moved out of her room into a side corridor. His voice was loud because, as I remembered from my visits to the room where the woman received her care, the woman to whom he spoke was hard of hearing. There were nurses in attendance, their hands holding the man’s arms as he continued his discourse, his one-sided conversation.
His ancient voice cracked. “Do you know what I have given up for you?” He continued with a litany of options that he had forgone to be with her. “Doesn’t that show how much I love you?,” he pleaded. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, but I do know that the woman for whom he professed his love had been largely unresponsive for a while, staring off at some other place, some other time. He continued, entreating, reviewing the many years of their lives, their family, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. They were old; he was older than she and she was 97, the threads of their life having run thin.
I left the floor to attend to other duties, returning some hours later to find the gentleman still by the side of his love, surrounded by even more nurses. He thanked them. “Thank you for taking care of my girl,” he said, one shaking hand on the bed rail, the other gently touching the woman’s face. “Goodbye, old girl,” he said. Men from the transport service helped him into a wheelchair. He smiled at the nurses who, by now had tears streaming down their faces. “I guess the next time I’ll see my gal will be in heaven.”
You could not witness this without being moved, yet it is so common to see this bond of something intangible, this love, being played out over and over on that floor. The family who has been there by the side of the fading life of their mother for weeks, comforting her, bringing her treats, humming her favorite tunes. The nurse who listens to the ramblings of dementia with compassion. The Dad, gruff and confrontational because he had no other way of relating to the serious illness that had befallen his son, the wife who sat with her spouse from early morning until late in the evening, those who slept in the waiting room outside of intensive care for weeks… and the smiles on faces when the lullaby announces the birth of new life … such affirmations of that which we cannot measure, that which cannot be prescribed, that which makes all the difference in the world.
If Covid-19 is a test of who we are, let’s not fail this one.
