Isolation

Isolation kills people.

Living a life isolated from others can really mess with people’s minds.

Ran into a work buddy yesterday. I remembered that his Dad was due for a complicated surgery. 

His Dad is 88.

“Hey, how’d your Pops make out?” I asked. 

“Surgery went well,” the man said. “But, they sent him to rehab. We can’t see him. My Mom, who has been stuck to his hip for the last 66 years, can’t see him. It breaks my damn heart. He keeps calling me to ask us where we are.”

I felt my heart sinking.

“Dad has a little dementia and he can’t figure out why we aren’t visiting him, but they’re saying we can’t visit him for 14 days.”

I thought about my Mom.

She hasn’t been able to be with any more than one of us at a time.

We’re all making every effort to engage her, but she doesn’t want to get sick. 

We don’t want to be the one that brings virus to her door.

That’s what aggravates me about not being unified enough...

...or smart enough...

...or compassionate enough...

...to bear down and beat this damn virus.

Why?

Why couldn’t we attack it together?

Why did they make it political?

What makes you ignore science and believe that you’re smarter than the epidemiologists that have been studying this stuff for years?

Sports with little to no fans.

Holidays without most of the family.

People dying alone, not being able to even say goodbye to their loved ones.

Rally after rally of people with no masks. All bunched together. All chanting “Fire Fauci” because he, what?

Because he good doctor told people to mask up?

Is that why he should be fired?

“It’s only been two days for my Dad,” my work buddy said. “He has to sit alone for 12 more days. I hope they don’t find him hanging from his bed sheet in his room.”

“Damn!” I said. “Keep calling him. Keep him engaged.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “But think of all of these poor elderly people. They worked all their lives and now they’re sitting in a room alone...dying!”

And no end in sight.

Why???