Kindness

Kindess

I am sitting here in despair tonight, my heart breaking for our front line workers and for our people in long term care facilities who are bearing the brunt of this horrible pandemic.   And it seems that worse than the pandemic is the way it’s being handled.  Health care workers are dealing with this without proper equipment and proper support when their staff members become ill.  So many long term care facilities are facing huge loss of life due to COVID-19.   Almost half of all the cases in Canada are in nursing homes.   And in some, the conditions are like something out of a horror movie.  Staff walking off the job in at least two places, leaving their vulnerable and helpless patients to fend for themselves.  People, some of whom can’t even feed or dress themselves, are left in deplorable conditions.

Imagine if it was you.  Imagine you are sick and you can no longer care for yourself so your family entrusts your care to a facility they have no doubt researched and almost certainly pay a great deal of money for your care.   You are taken care of and you feel safe there and even though you would rather be in your home, you know this is the best place for you.  So you learn to deal with it, and as your condition deteriorates you learn to be grateful for the care you receive.   And then something happens.  People start getting sick and dying.  This is not unusual in places like this after all everyone is elderly and ill.  But this is different.  There are more than the usual amount of deaths.  The home doesn’t tell you anything for fear of mass panic, but you see what is going on.  You notice the ambulance is there several times a day.  You notice the usually cheerful staff is suddenly harried and preoccupied.  They are gowned and gloved and masked and it’s frightening you.   Some of your favourite care workers are no longer coming to see you and the ones who do come don’t have time to linger and don’t seem to really understand your needs.   You can’t shower, dress, or feed yourself and now you are being expected to do these things for yourself or wait for hours, sometimes a day for someone to help you.   And then one day, no one comes at all.   The halls are silent except for the cries of your fellow residents who are also in desperate need.  But your cries go unanswered because the staff have walked off the job.  Imagine.  You are helpless and no one comes.  How can people just walk away like that?  What kind of person can leave a helpless person to suffer?   A person who is desperate and in fear for their lives, or a person who is desperately ill themselves.

My 89-year-old friend Barb is in one of the retirement homes in the news tonight, luckily not for neglect but sadly for 3 deaths due to this virus.   She was very sick last week with symptoms and was tested but has not heard the results as of today.  Although she is feeling better this week, she is anxious and confused about what is going on because they aren’t telling the residents anything.   I am sick at heart at not being able to go to her and offer comfort or even just fix her electronic devices that are always on the fritz. The helplessness of this whole thing is just …devastating

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Kindness.   Something everybody needs.  Some more than others.  And while there are stories of kindnesses happening all around us, it seems these days that we could use so much more.    There is a hymn that we sing at our Unitarian church called The Least of These and it’s one of my favourites.   “Cause whatever you do, to the least of these, you do to me.”   Jesus said that.  And even though I am not a Christian I really take this to heart.   It’s about kindness and compassion.  It’s about life, how you should treat others and how you should expect to be treated.   It’s about the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

  

It’s not hard to be kind to people who are easy, people who are doing well and able to take care of themselves.   It’s easy to be kind to sweet children, and cute animals.  But it’s not so easy to be kind to the least of us.  The poor, the hungry, the neglected, the sick and the elderly.   You can tell how well a society is functioning by the way they treat their less fortunate.   I like to think that as Canadians we excel at kindness.  It’s how we see ourselves.  But these cases of neglect and abandonment have happened right here in our country.   And in our country, we put the needs of our less fortunate at the bottom of the list when it comes to how we spend our money.  It’s sad, and it’s shameful. 

Being kind doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.  Small things can make someone’s day.   A kind word, a bag of groceries, and gentle touch, a plant left on a doorstep, a sign in your window, homemade cards sent to the front line workers, masks donated to health care workers, a letter written to the government demanding change.  All of these things make the world a better place to live and makes us better people.

Each of us needs to do better.  Somehow we need to step up and do what we can to help these people.  I plan on writing letters demanding change.  I don’t want to see things go back to the way they were before so that this type of thing can happen again.  I want to see improvements in the way we treat our elderly.  There’s a good chance that someday most of us will be elderly and needing that care and we will want it to be there.

So what will you do?