Quarantine hasn’t felt like a “break” so far. It’s more like a nightmare I can’t get away from. The first day I came home I found myself climbing into my dad’s pickup truck. We were on our way to visit my grandmother at her assisted living facility. The place was on lockdown to prevent any of the residents or staff from getting Corona virus. No one at my grandmother’s facility had it, but as a precautionary measure no visitors were allowed. Even though, my grandmother was on hospice and only given a few days to live, the facility made no exceptions. Other family members and I did what we weren’t supposed to and kept parking in an area off to the side and sneaking in through the back door of her private bedroom. When I saw her, I knew there were really no words to be exchanged at this point except me telling her “thank you for everything, I love you, and say hi to everyone in Heaven for me.” She laid there shivering and writhing under her blankets, so thin and frail I couldn’t tell where her legs were underneath all that cloth. I just held her hand as she coughed and gagged. She would squeeze my hand sometimes and I would like to think that was her way of saying “I love you” because she couldn’t speak anymore. I snuck in a few more times to visit, her handholds got weaker and her breaths fell farther and farther apart. A few days later she passed. Her suffering was over, but now I was stuck thinking if what I did was moral. Visiting her certainly wasn’t social distancing, but is it required when the person you are seeing is going to die anyway? Did I put other people in the nursing home at risk…that I can’t really tell you. I only ever came in through the back door of my grandmothers’ private room and stayed a few feet away from the hospice nurse. Maybe my decisions were selfish, but picturing my grandmother fading into dust with no loved ones by her side is not something I can just accept. I can’t really blame the assisted living facility in this situation. I understand rules are rules, but sometimes rules need to be broken.
Hannah Pringle – Blog Post #1
