Empathy Matters

 I've been thinking a lot about when my grandpa Gord died 11 years ago.  He was in long-term care.  He had taken a stroke and we knew he wouldn't recover.  We all dropped what we were doing.  Canceled our plans.  Arranged to spend his final days and hours together.  Surrounding him with his wife and children and grandchildren seemed the best send-off for a man who had worked his whole life to provide for us.  

As we sat around him for the 4 days until he took his last breath, we made some of the most memorable of family memories.  We told stories and laughed and beamed love out of our chests at the man who had loved and scolded us in equal measure.  Other family members came to say goodbye and they brought meals and love with them too.  It was a revolving door of love for 4 straight days.

As I bent over this morning to pluck a piece of lint off of my bedroom carpet all of this came back to me.  My grandpa, if he were alive now, would have been diagnosed with OCD over his incessant need to pick invisible lint balls off of the carpet.  I can see him doing it in my mind's eye now.  Every summer for the week I would spend with them he would be bending over hourly, painstakingly snatching invisible dust threats from the rug my grandmother had recently vacuumed.

Isn't it those little things that make each of us our own kind of crazy and also so memorable and loved?  He also greeted each of his grandchildren yelling "CHOTOKAYWEENUT!!!" and then cracking us on the head almost too hard but it was a crack of love if you know what I mean?  I'm sure you have these weird memories and stories about your grandparents too.  We all do.  

But when I was thinking about my grandpa and his life and death and carpet dust obsession today I couldn't help but think of all the grandmas, grandpas, great aunts, and uncles who have died in long-term care since March from COVID 19.  Dying thirsty, hungry, suffocating, alone with not enough staff, not enough care, not enough love.  

Don't we each deserve to feel surrounded by care and compassion when it's our time?  Haven't we each made impressions on those around us in a way that earns us the respect of a death with dignity and with our people?  Every single person that has died from COVID 19 has died alone or at least way more alone than they would have been in regular days.  And each of them had their own version of carpet dust obsessions and "CHOTOKAYWEENUT!" - they were each people that had folks that loved them and that they drove crazy.  Not just daily reported twitter post numbers.  Real people.

I can't separate my own losses from the losses that are occurring all around me right now and I think that's a good thing.  Empathy and caring about each other is the only way we are going to get through this pandemic.  

Our family has made our decisions about contacts with people outside of our household with these old folks and their caregivers in mind.  With health workers, essential workers, and teachers in mind.  With all the folks who are putting themselves in harm's way to protect us.  

We have stopped seeing people in our home, we have stopped all extra activities outside of school and work, we wear masks when we are out and we will not be having Christmas like we normally do.  When we made these decisions we could not separate our own losses from the losses that are occurring around us because every decision we make affects our most vulnerable Canadians.  

I don't know how to make people care about other people but that's what is required right now.  We must care about other people as much and sometimes more than ourselves because it matters how we treat each other and it matters on a big scale what happens next as far as case counts and hospital capacity as we brace ourselves in this second wave.  

I'm a mix of mad and sad heartbroken today.  I'm mad at the anti-maskers and the "but my freedom!" yellers.  I'm sad that my grandpa is dead and that so many other old people have died and will die because we aren't doing our best to protect them.  I'm mad/sad that there is a bloody pandemic and that it's the start of winter but I urge you, as the prime minister did, to make those tough decisions to cut out your extra contacts now.  Don't see folks inside and wear your damn mask.  Handwashing also please.  The only way out is through this and how we get through it will either make or break us.  

It matters what each of us does, this isn't someone else's problem.  Let's get through this so we can get back to our rituals and way of life and death and let's do it together.