At the start of the Pandemic, my spouse’s grandmother was in an assisted-living home, and of course they were severely locked down, because with no vaccination available and we don’t really know how it spreads and no tests and anyone over 80 is deffo gonna die…. They couldn’t take the risks. So they weren’t even allowed to leave their rooms. Staff brought meals and left them outside the door, and they left dishes outside, and that was just their life for the foreseeable future.
So we tried to make sure someone called her every day, so she would have some kind of interaction, and one time my spouse asked how she was doing, and her attitude was basically, “Yeah, this happens sometimes.”
Because that was her life. She did live through the depression, she did lose three siblings to the last pandemic. She did live through WWII, and sent a son off to Vietnam, and made a family and a household and a career while knowing one slip of a button might wipe out all life on earth. And she lived through it; she survived.
And so 2020 wasn’t the end of the world, for her. It was just another thing. Because life is made up of sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs, AND ALSO fascists and violence and rancid millionaires living high while people starve. And when you are in the middle of the shit times, you acknowledge that they’re shit, and also that they are not exclusively shit, because they still include spring days and new flowers and people taking care of each other.
And it was just… a really helpful perspective to get. You can survive it, you can become strong enough to live to 103 despite everything, you can become a source of strength and joy for everyone around you.
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