Memories and Hope

 

 

I have not posted in a number of days.  Last time I posted, I wrote about mental health.  For my own mental health, I have had to stop watching the news – especially Canadian news – and back away from social media.  A few days ago, the National from Canada was reporting on the conditions in seniors’ care homes.  Even just writing this I can feel the tears welling up.  This was when I knew I had to stop watching the news – it hit so close to home.  My mother passed away just over 2 years ago after living in various levels of care since my father died in 2010.  She had Alzheimer’s and lived far past the time that our doctor expected.  Six years in fact.  I know my mother would have been horrified if she had been aware of her condition at the end, and, while I have grieved and let go of that loss, I still have not relinquished nor properly grieved the loss of the mother that I once knew.  She had once been so determined and competent and she never took shit from anyone, yet she was so helpless at the end.

So, when I was listening to the condition of some of the care homes (and let me emphasize some), it touched that part of me that was still grieving for my mother that was so full of life, and horrified me when I thought of how helpless our elders are.  There are not enough words…

And still, as horrible as this is, and as truly saddened as I am, this, in some twisted way, actually gives me hope.

This pandemic highlights our greatest failings in glaring detail: leaders who did not listen, and in some cases are still not listening, to the scientists who warned of this last fall, leaders who mistakenly believe that ‘opening up the economy’ is more important than fighting this virus (as if the virus run rampant won’t destroy the economy anyhow), holes in, and sometimes total lack of, a social safety net, the way we treat the most vulnerable people in our communities – the elderly, the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled.

Even as we fight this terrible virus, we have an opportunity here.  Let us look at these failings and learn from them so that those who have been struck down because of them will not have died in vain.  Let us not go back to normal.  We need a new normal.  A normal in which caring about our community – our entire community, even the ones that are difficult to love – is paramount.  The economy is not the heart of our countries and communities; the people are.  Surely we can find a way to make this work.  At the risk of sounding maudlin, we need communities and countries with love and caring at their core, not greed and fear.  We are better than that.  Or, at least, we all have the possibility to be better than that.  Let us demand this from our leaders.  Let them hear our voices.