Gaining Empathy for the Isolated Before COVID-19

Someone I did not recognize behind the hat, sunglasses, and mask was calling my name. Finally, I recognized his voice. The masked figure was the husband of a friend who had died of cancer almost a year ago. Like the rest of us, he ventured out when he thought it was safe, and spent the rest of the time in his apartment.

When I asked how he was managing, his answer surprised me. “This social isolation has made it easier for me because now I am not the only one alone. Before this, unless someone invited me over for dinner, I was alone all day, and the silence was so unbearable I used to keep the television on just to hear some human voices. But now since everyone is home, people are calling up and doing Zoom dinners, or inviting me to participate in online meetings and lectures. I wish I had had that company last fall when people sort of forgot about me.”

Of course, we were among the guilty, having invited him over for dinner only a few times, and also to dinner with members of a book club his wife had attended. The ability to connect through video chats and personal viewing on cell phones had never occurred to us as a way of lessening his loneliness, although now it seems obvious. The isolation he was facing should have been obvious. It was obvious, but we were not sufficiently responsive.

Now, moreover, it begins to be possible for all of us who were fortunate enough to go where we wish, when we wish, to understand the emotional toll of being physically unable to leave the house. A close friend, Susan, who lived with ALS for almost five years, found her world gradually constricted by the increasing deterioration in her mobility. One winter when more than 100 inches of snow was dumped on the city where she lived, she was unable to leave her apartment for eight weeks. The movable platform that brought her and her wheelchair down the outside steps of her building was literally frozen in place, and she left her apartment only when a spring thaw melted the snow. Although I visited her frequently that winter, and I was aware of how shut-in she was, I did not fully understand the effects of her isolation until now. Or how she endured it.

Like so many of us now, she let her mind give her the freedom to escape the almost total physical limitation of her body. The internet was not full of online activities as it is now, and Zoom, if it existed then, was not something anyone she knew was using. But with a device that enhanced her voice, she made full use of the phone, and when she could still use her hands, she wrote emails and texts. She FaceTimed with friends and a spiritual advisor who lived many time zones away and treasured their visits. Before her disease, she was extremely active both in work and community obligations, and she was a devoted gym member. And like what has happened to all of us who must not venture outside except for exercise and necessities, she had to learn how to accept, often with resignation, the severe constriction of her life.

We complain and some are outraged at the restrictions placed on our movements done to ensure our health and, indeed, our lives. But my friend complained only rarely, and that was when she no longer could use her hands. “How can I have people over for dinner,” she asked me, “when someone has to feed me?” I think of this when I complain that I cannot have people over for dinner because we have to be socially isolated. We who are stuck at home somehow get through every day often without making full use of the time our new life has given us. Susan, knowing that her life was going to end inevitably, and in too short a time, told me that life/time was too precious to waste on anger and depression and boredom.

When the COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease, and we gradually resume the activities that made up our daily lives, there still will be those whose lives will not change. Mental and physical disabilities and disease will continue to severely limit their mobility and social interactions. Will their social needs be forgotten once the rest of us are free to move about at will? Once we are able to stop social distancing, will we stop reaching out to those whose situation makes them permanently socially alone? Will we stop being empathetic toward those who are always “shut-in"?

Susan taught me to be grateful for almost everything I took for granted, that is, everything she took for granted before ALS took it away. COVID-19 should also make us grateful for the joy we will have when we can finally be with our friends and family. And hopefully, ensure that we continue to decrease the isolation of those who will not have the freedom to move about, even after the virus has disappeared.