poignant

[asakiyume]

I'm putting this behind a cut because people have different bandwith for stuff. This is not a tragic story, but it's --well, like the subject line says. Poignant.


Of course it is on lockdown right now, no one can visit anyone there, for the protection of the residents' health. Today I went for a walk in the environs of that facility, and there was a couple, about my age, probably, and probably husband and wife (but possibly siblings), pressed up against the exterior of a window on the ground floor. They were talking to someone on the inside. I walked about a mile and a half; they were there at the start of the walk and there at the end. We do what we can to support one another.

It was a very salient image of our times.

Comments

[sartorias]

That is poignant. A friend I usually go out for a high tea lunch with made a stealth tea drop since all four of us are high risk. That's the name of the game these days.

[asakiyume]

It's a real case of now-we-see-through-a-glass-darkly

it'll be wonderful to be face to face, when that time comes.

[minoanmiss]

Oh, my heart.

[asakiyume]

Yeah; it aches.

[sovay]

They were talking to someone on the inside. I walked about a mile and a half; they were there at the start of the walk and there at the end.

I'm glad they can speak in person, not just over the phone or a screen.

[asakiyume]

Yes, me too.

[queenoftheskies]

Separation from dear friends and loved ones is difficult right now.

[asakiyume]

It is. We're lucky we have the tools we have for dealing with it, but even so.

[cmcmck]

The tragedy here is that such facilities are becoming covid petri dishes and it's not altogether clear what one can do about that. :o(

[asakiyume]

You're so right.

There's a terrible case near me--a home for veterans, people who have served in the military. So many have died there. They were all very ill to begin with, but still. The thing that it has shone a spotlight on in that case was how criminally underfunded and underresourced the place was for YEARS. Not enough nurses to take proper care of these frail, desperately sick people. And that was in "good times"! And so of course when a true calamity struck.

It's really revealed what a warehousing mentality the country has had toward people at the end of life. It's as if the virus said, "Oh, you don't care about these people? Okay, fine then, let me go to work." And now we can howl and say No no no! But it's too late. (I realize the people reading here never had a warehousing mentality, etc. etc., but....)

[mallorys_camera]

Heart-wrenching.

[asakiyume]

Yeah

[amaebi]

Poignant on the good side. Think of all the windows no one is pressing up to.

[asakiyume]

I do! Like all the floors above ground floor--the building is about six stories.

[amaebi]

Ah, I thought of second-floor windows as I finished my comment, but not of a still-taller building. But it was really the accessible ones I had in mind....

[asakiyume]

But it was really the accessible ones I had in mind --Yes, even if the architecture makes contact possible, it takes human will to make it happen.

[zyzyly]

Poignant indeed. I have to wonder after all this, with so many people in nursing homes and assisted living communities getting sick, whether we, as a society will start to find a way to keep our elderly relatives at home, safe.

[asakiyume]

I STRONGLY agree. It's like the virus said, "Oh, you don't really care about these people? WELL THEN."