Most of us with aging parents understand that we can’t visit them. No matter what businesses open or when, we don’t want to put our loved ones at risk. So many folks over age 65 have health conditions, it’s obvious that they are vulnerable. It’s painful, it’s depressing and we don’t know when it will end. We’re expecting them to stay at home and we want them safe.
Millions of grandparents provide childcare and loving relationships for their grandkids, helping out millions of parents who work and need that help. The closeness to grandparents is of benefit to all. We took it for granted that we could rely on these things and now we can’t. It’s so hard.
I keep seeing images of younger people connecting with older loved ones through glass. It’s on a screen. It’s through the window at the seniors’ residence. It’s outside the nursing home. It’s separation. And it’s the best we can do at this time.
Even though it feels so strange and so limited, it is critical to everyone’s mental wellness to keep connecting, keep visiting on screen when possible and to keep kissing through glass when we can. It is important to remember that glass can’t stop love and that any caring words you communicate, however you communicate them mean a lot to both the giver and the receiver. We can all feel somewhat helpless against the novel coronavirus and its devastating effects, but we are not helpless. We can show up however technology, windows or virtual meetings allow us to do. We can persist for as long as it takes. We can relay words of encouragement that none of us must ever, ever give up in this fight.
It supports our own mental wellness to offer encouragement to another person. Every time we reach out and speak to someone who is struggling, particularly an aging parent who is isolated, we are doing good not just for them but for ourselves too.
I am the aging parent at AgingParents.com in my personal scenario. I am fortunate to have a kind and caring husband at home with me. Many older parents are alone, and I feel so blessed. And I miss hugging my daughter who lives ten minutes away! And my son, whom I would want to see on Mother’s Day too. It’s the way of things now and we have to deal with it. Coping is determination, facing what we must face and accepting for now.
I offer one suggestion that helps me every day as I wake up looking at more uncertainty. Don’t look at the news first. Think of ten things you are grateful about and say them out loud. And make hope one of them. That hope unites us. May you feel it, live in it and speak about it to any aging parent or other loved one through glass, from six feet away on the phone or however you can. Hope is the fuel that keeps us all going forward.
