I am not in a nursing home, but at my age I can see one from here. That is a battle from which even I, in my advanced years, cannot send back a dispatch. But I have received a message from this front line in a Washington Post article, and I have a new hero.
As I watch young people, who so far have not been greatly affected by the virus, be unable to keep from swarming beaches, crowding bars, and filling swimming pools, I think of those in nursing facilities who have borne the brunt of the disease. As reported by the CDC, 8 out of 10 deaths from covid-19 are from those over 65. Some of these people who are in nursing homes have been confined to their rooms since March. The facility dining rooms are silent, the bingo is shut down, visiting a friend in another room is off limits, and anxious relatives can only wave from outside a window. If you die, you will die alone.
In the midst of this are a group of nursing home residents who have taken to the airways with Radio Recliner. They are disc jockeys for this online radio station, and from the confines of their solitary rooms they are spinning tunes from their youth with commentaries to match. While the TV is full of death and disaster, the chatter on this radio is upbeat and the tunes bring back welcome memories from youth, especially tunes connected to the courting of departed spouses.
These senior DJs have been here before — perhaps not precisely, but close enough. “They spent childhood summers trapped inside because going out meant being exposed to the polio virus. They suffered months-long interruptions of love affairs because their man was shipped off to war. And in the last chapter of their lives, they ended up in these places — pleasant enough, they say, but still, a difficult, final pivot from homes they knew and loved.”
But what makes these senior DJs my heroes is a comment from one of them, age 79, who says with conviction, “We don’t have time to be sad, not at our age.” As her grandchildren might say, ‘You go girl.’