Elder Care

Yesterday, I visited my mother at the nursing home. The facility is just over an hour away, and prior to Covid I visited every 2-3 weeks, usually with my daughters. We would enter by the front door, going to her room, and either wheeling her into a visiting area or sitting outdoors with her to visit. Though she has Alzheimers and was in decline, the visits always had a positive effect in communicating love. She visibly registered a sense of peace, regardless of the extent to which she could grasp who we were and what our history together was.

Yesterday, like the last time, I went with my father, and my daughter was with us. It was a nice day, and we planned to visit outdoors. The staff has completely changed, so no one recognizes me as my mother’s daughter. An aide wheeled Mom out the door at the scheduled time, took our temperatures, and told me to write down my information on a piece of paper. She informed us that only two visitors were allowed, though we were outdoors. My daughter went back to sit in the car. Dad and I visited for awhile with my now greatly reduced mother, who verbalized nothing. He gave her one of his chocolate chip cookies, a ritual that seems to brighten her day, and which required her mask to be removed. Dad undid one ear loop from his mask so she could see his face; I kept mine on till about 15 minutes in, when I removed it to take a deep breath, and to give her a chance to see my face as well. A staffer immediately appeared and insisted that the masks be on. After 30 minutes, the aide came back out and wheeled her away.

The whole experience angered and grieved me, taking an already tragic disease and amplifying the sadness. I’ve felt since they closed the home in spring of 2020 that it’s like Mom is already gone. This visit added the sense that she is no longer our possession; she is regarded as the property of the facility.

Yet she’s been my mom for my whole life. She’s been my father’s wife for 60 years. He visits multiple times a week and goes through this every time, though both he and she are fully vaccinated.

The question is less about whether any individual rule is justified or not. It’s whether this society of panic and regulation and control is one that any of us wants to live in. The concept of health is complex, and it includes more than being physically disease-free. A viable culture would not turn it over to the blunt instrument of dysfunctional politics. Are the powers that be fit to be making these kinds of intimate value judgments about our lives?