We’ve been sheltering in place for the last five weeks, and we’ve become adjusted to the changes. Yes, we don’t shop in grocery stores or Costco (as Jennifer and Jason have taken that away from us), we don’t go out to eat, we don’t meet with our friends, when we encounter people out walking either we go out to the street or they do, we wear our masks, we read, we try to manage as best we can. Jadyne assembles jigsaw puzzles; I cut snippets of flowers from my neighbors’ yards to practice “focus stacking” a technique new to me about closeup photography.
Before all this happened Jadyne played Scrabble every week with Diane, a widow living in a nursing home in El Cerrito. Three or four years ago Jadyne, having recognized the many issues that nursing home residents face, volunteered to play games with them. She was assigned Diane, an eighty-plus year old woman who was still sharp, showed no signs of dementia, and found TV and the other residents unable to keep her interest alive. All that changed with Jadyne. More than any of the activities that she faced in the 168 hours that comprised her week, the 90 minutes with Jadyne were unquestionably her favorite. Oh, they played with different rules. No two letter words. No consulting a scrabble dictionary. They had to know the words they used and their definitions. Sometimes Diane won. Sometimes Jadyne did.
After a while they stopped keeping score. They just played. When the pandemic struck and the shelter-at-home rules passed, the caretaker at the nursing home informed Jadyne that she would no longer be able to visit. Jadyne called Diane and explained it to her, but it was a bit puzzling to Diane, who was sheltered not only for her safety, but sheltered, too, from the news. Jadyne would call her from time to time, but after a while no one answered the phone. Jadyne assumed that Diane was talking to someone in her family and wouldn’t have expected another call.
So Jadyne sent her a card, wishing her well. Before the card was returned Jadyne received a call from Diane’s daughter. Diane had died in the hospital. Alone. She had become unresponsive a week or so earlier and was taken to the hospital. No one could visit her. Pandemic regulations. A doctor called the daughter. No the pandemic didn’t kill her, and it’s unlikely that it in any way influenced what happened. But because of the pandemic no one could be with her. She died alone.