South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Afraid, sad, lonely
South Florida’s seniors spent most of 2020 locked away
The last time Judith Enzor remembers living without the fear of dying alone in a hospital was her last date with her husband in February.
Enzor, 74, and her husband, John, 88, went to a restaurant in Hollywood, where they’ve lived for decades by the water. They stood on the Dania Beach fishing pier and watched the moon creep out of the ocean.
Days later, their cardiologist warned them about a deadly virus romping through Europe — a virus tailor-made to kill them. Enzor’s life — once filled with trips to the Keys, walks on the Hollywood Broadwalk and sacred Friday night dates with her husband — grinded to a halt. For 10 months, it’s remained that way.
“You can’t see it, can’t smell it can’t taste it, you don’t know who is infected” Enzor said, describing her experience of living with the fear of
COVID-19. “We’re scared.”
While the pandemic certainly has unhinged everyone’s lives in South Florida, the past 10 months have taken a particularly sad, lonely, terrifying toll on older people like the Enzors.
Many of the elderly have remained isolated from children, grandchildren and friends. They’ve become paranoid of everyone who breathes. Walking down the supermarket aisle, allowing the termite inspector inside, or standing in line at Marshall’s feels like a life or death choice.
They know that while almost everyone who gets COVID-19 lives, their chances of survival are slimmer. Of the more than 21,000 people who have died in Florida, 83% have been over the age of 65.
Because of this, seniors weigh the risks and many have decided to stay home — shuttering their once vibrant lives to ensure they make it to 2021. Many, like Judith Krovetz of Boynton Beach, are wistful for what feels like a year robbed from the twilight of their lives.
“How many years do we have left to see our kids and our grandkids and be out and about enjoying ourselves?” said Krovetz, 79.
Upended lives
Every senior that spoke with the South Florida Sun Sentinel remembers when their life was upended. For each, it happened back at the beginning of a year that was supposed to be a continuation of a South Florida retiree’s dream.
Road trips, beaches, time with the grandchildren, cruises, games of Mahjong and Bridge. By the end of March, the plug was pulled on all of it.
Daryl Miller, 70, remembers the day clearly.
It was March 11 and she was at a Miami Heat game with her husband. Already they had canceled a February cruise and figured they’d be able to reschedule it for the summer. Miller had a gnawing fear about the virus and sat at the very end of her row, facing the aisle to avoid people.
Later that night, the NBA announced the season was being put on hold because a player tested positive in another city. “That was it,” Miller said.
She’s yet to rebook that February cruise. She’s stopped her shopping trips to Marshall’s and TJ Maxx. She’s stopped volunteering as a greeter at the Broward County Animal Shelter. She no longer hosts friends on Friday night before Sabbath at her Hollywood home. Thanksgiving was spent apart from her nine grandchildren.
“It’s very limiting,” said Miller, whose immune system is compromised.
Phil Brault, 78, had his own big plans for 2020. He’d just bought a new car and was in search of a trailer to hitch to it. He envisioned weeks of hitting the road with his 51-year-old son, who lives with Down Syndrome, visiting relatives throughout the U.S. and eventually making it up to Alaska.
“Along came the pandemic,” Brault said. “And here we are.”
His son’s daytime training program was canceled in March. A monthly clinic his son attended at the University of Florida was moved to Zoom. At the start of the pandemic, Brault got his son out for walks on the beach. But lately, his son has lost interest.
Brault said he’s lost track of what day or month it is. Putting up his Christmas tree in his Deerfield Beach home reminded him the year is nearly gone. But as the sole caregiver for his son, his will to stay home, despite the isolation, remains strong. “I’m the last caretaker,” he said. “It’s my responsibility to stay healthy.”
Overwhelming paranoia
Many seniors said their isolation is compounded by the fear they’ve developed of others. When Brault does yard work, he said he looks over his shoulder for younger neighbors who have far less regard for masks and distance.
“I have to keep an eye on them to see if they are running over to say hello.”
Ruby Cherof has lived in Fort Lauderdale for 40 years and once enjoyed chatting up her neighbors. But for the past 10 months, Cherof, 66, abstains. “I feel like I don’t say anything to anybody,” she said. “I go to my side of the street and hope they go to their side.”
If the person isn’t wearing a mask, she tenses up. “It’s almost a paranoia,” she said. “I don’t want to be fearful of people.”
Unfortunately, she said fear accompanies her whenever she has to step out to pick up groceries or run a quick errand. “I’m looking over my shoulder, wondering if people are too close to me,” she said. “It’s not without anxiety to be out in public.”
Miller said the few times she’s tried to eat outside at a restaurant, she’s felt that same way. “The whole time I’m looking to see who is sitting around me,” she said. “We rush, we eat, and we get out of there. It’s not enjoyable.”
Enzor, whose husband is 88, doesn’t even chance it.
She’s learned to order her groceries and takeout on apps. The only time she leaves is to pick up prescription medication from Publix’s drive-thru. She said she normally has a termite inspector come by her home twice a year, but this year she’s canceled both appointments.
“Let them eat the house,” she said of the termites. “I’m not letting anybody in.”
Coping with the loneliness
To pass their time at home, seniors say they rely on Netflix, Zoom and once neglected hobbies.
Cherof tunes into webinars about art history. She once enjoyed the company of friends at her knitting club but now continues the practice on her own. She also used to have a regularly Mahjong game going, but now her friends all play on an app and call each other on the phone.
“It seems like we’re in the same room,” she said. “But we’re not.”
Krovetz said she spends five days a week playing Canesta on FaceTime with new friends she met online. She has asthma and high blood pressure. Her husband is 91 with Parkinson’s. The two have been holed up since January and she said the card game, though it takes place on screen, makes her feel alive for a couple hours.
“It’s a reason to put on my makeup and get dressed because I’m going to see other people,” she said. “If I didn’t have that, I’d be in my nightgown all the time.”
Miller, who retired from nursing last year, spends her newfound free time oil painting.
It used to be something she did only when she had the time and energy for it. But now she spends three to four hours a day painting while her husband, a gastroenterologist, is at work. “If I didn’t have that, I probably would’ve gone out of my head by now.”
Myron Shapiro has been divorced for years and has spent most of the last 10 months alone in his trailer in Pompano Beach. After rarely picking up the pen in 20 years, he began writing poetry again in March.
Within months, Shapiro, 84, finished a book that he aptly titled “Pandemic Poetry.” One of the poems in the book, titled “More Cloud Formations,” talks about the various shapes and figures he said he began to see while sitting outside of his trailer each day and staring up at the clouds.
It starts off:
They are back again
My heavenly friends
It’s like taking a Rorschach Test Selecting the images that are the best
A moose
A goose
A joker
What a smoker
Before Shapiro locked down in March, he planned to make his yearly trek up to Maine, where he enjoys spending the summer and fall months. Along the way he usually stops to visit his children and grandchildren in New Jersey. This year he’s spoken to them only on the phone.
Although he’s uncertain of the future, he said he’s already planning to make the trip in September of 2021. He hopes he’ll have been vaccinated for COVID-19 by then.
“You have to plan,” he said. “If you think about yesterday, you’re gonna die.”
Holding out for a vaccine
All the seniors who spoke to the Sun Sentinel hope that a COVID-19 vaccine will allow them to finally end their months of hibernation from the world and their loved ones. But thus far all of them have been frustrated in their attempts to get clarity on where and when to get the shot.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that they would be eligible for the vaccine this week, they said they’ve all been met with busy dial tones and answering machines whenever they try to make an appointment.
“It seems so disorganized,” Cherof said.
Enzor said she’s also worried about how the vaccine will be distributed for seniors like her who don’t live in a nursing home or assisted-living facility.
“If we’ve been hiding in the bushes this long, we’re certainly not going to go stand in a line somewhere.”
Despite their concerns, all of them say they are ready to get their prick in the arm and finally reenter the world after 10 months of hiding from it.
Krovetz said she’ll be glad to finally stop weighing the risk of her daily decisions and choices, asking herself, “Is this worth dying for?”
She also looks forward to seeing the people she loves in person, as opposed to on a screen. Thanksgiving and Christmas were lonesome this year without her 13 grandchildren and three daughters, she said. New Year’s Eve looked to be just the same.
But now she feels like she can see light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel.
“I’m really looking forward to 2021.”