Friday, Feb. 12
By Katherine Schneider, for the CVPost
Being elderly during the pandemic has meant extra fears, extra isolation and extra disability/access issues.
But it has also brought extra opportunities to serve.
Daily news reports make us aware of the extra level of vulnerability to COVID-19 for those of us who are elderly and/or those with underlying conditions. Elder friends living in communities are even more vulnerable.
Until vaccinations become available, all we can do to deal with our fears of infection and death is to practice hygiene and distancing guidelines.
Distancing results in isolation
The distancing leads to isolation. Being told by places of worship, “stay home” is sound advice, but doesn’t help with the isolation.
If faith leaders – in addition to the “stay home” directive – had said please pray, call if you have needs and/or let us know your ideas for keeping parishioners connected, it would have felt less like being kicked to the curb.
Scott Turow in his excellent new legal thriller, The Last Trial, describes aging well:
The aging lawyer “foresaw many parts of this—the aging fingers that seem like stone. . . the old man who holds up everyone behind him. But he did not guess how natural it would feel to be retreating from the world. Caring goes on. But you accept more and more that you have limited time and thus, effect. Your connections in the present dwindle as peers die, as you lose your spouse. You’re at a distance and it requires more effort to understand what everyone else is saying, not least of all because he can barely hear.”
The isolation enforced by the pandemic makes this aging process worse. Well meant efforts to send grandma a card or get an already harried staff member at an assisted living facility to help an elder Zoom are great, but may feel like a drop in the bucket.
Access issues like poorly designed websites to do online grocery ordering, and the necessity to call around to find out where to get a vaccination and to arrange transportation, fill the aging persons’ lives with extra frustrations dealing with systems that weren’t designed with them in mind to begin with.
Opportunities also exist
But there are also opportunities.
Being an elder living alone made me start a club for four other elders in the same situation who check in daily so we know each one of us is up and taking nourishment each day. Knowing how much traditional Catholics miss weekly Communion made me agitate my parish to offer individual Communion appointments a few times a year.
Having friends with various disabilities made me aware of the need for government to take these into account in its response to the pandemic.
I seized the opportunity as a County Board member to advocate for having Health Department briefings interpreted for the deaf. And I stressed the need not only for a masking ordinance but also to inform those who cannot mask for health reasons what alternatives exist for them.
There’s a moral to this story: Aging during a pandemic is not for sissies but can be done well if you lean into it and use the grit and wisdom that have brought you this far.