Assignment a different lesson for each of us
Reach out to someone who will gratefully appreciate your efforts
Instead of wasting hours of your life writing social media tirades to strangers you’ll never meet, spend a few minutes reaching out to someone who’ll gratefully appreciate your efforts.
Find a sheet of blank paper or an unsent greeting card. Grab one of the dozens of old pens in your kitchen junk drawer. Unearth an envelope and a stamp. And then think of what daily life may be like for too many lonely or forgotten residents at long-term care facilities that have been on lockdown for nearly a year.
Many of these older people see no visitors of any kind besides the same workers inside these largely forgotten assisted-care facilities or nursing homes. These alienated seniors likely haven’t mingled in society for months. Their view of the outside world comes through the same panes of glass through their bedroom or television set.
Just imagine, receiving an unexpected card or letter or gift from a stranger — you — could feel like a lottery jackpot to them. What are they going to do with $625 million anyway from the Powerball game? The odds are much better of them getting excited from your snail-mailed gesture of kindness. If anything, your effort can give them a quickpick smile for the day. Or possibly a new pen-pal, from scratch.
This viewpoint was essentially the message that a Porter County high school teacher tried to impart on her students last month. Some of them were less than enthused to connect with someone several decades older than them, even if they lived just a few miles away.
In a previous column, I wrote about the teens’ initial reactions and, later, their letters to nursing home residents in their community. In a follow-up column, I then shared readers’ reactions to the students’ apathy or antipathy. I keep receiving responses to those two columns. For whatever reason, this topic has touched a nerve with readers.
My guess is it’s because most of us see viewpoints from both ends of this spectrum. We were the apathetic teens. We someday may be the lonely, isolated seniors. In a flash, we experience a sense of our glory days and a glimpse our final days.
That high school teacher’s assignment offered a lesson to each of us in different ways.
“Your column reflects American attitudes today,” wrote Marvin Z., of Chesterton. “It is the parents of these children who have faltered. That would be an interesting story.”
Rick Howe, of Crystal Lake, shared an exchange with me that he had with his friend, Gene, about this ageless subject.
“The kids were not apathetic. They lacked empathy which is due to a dearth of experiences that inspire compassion,” Howe wrote. “This was an opportunity to teach and although the teacher started down the wrong path, I think she redeemed herself. I wish she had not stressed her disappointment on social media.”
His friend, Gene, wrote, “In fairness to the young, I’m not sure that it’s apathy that caused these kids to respond as they did. It could be fear. And they’re being asked to expose that to a complete stranger, someone with no face or name to address. What do they say?”
The teens knew nothing at all about the possible letter recipient. Would he or she be in good health? Sharp mental awareness? Not lonely or bored or alienated? In their last days of life? And these teens are expected to have the maturity to grasp the true significance of such an assignment?
“I don’t think it’s apathy, but rather a lack of empathy,” Gene concluded. “And that lacking is just developmental. The average teen cannot put themselves in the shoes of the average 25-year-old, let alone some faceless geezer in an old folks home. So, my ultimate take is that this teacher set her students up for exactly the responses she got.”
Lynn Rogge, another reader, wrote, “I hope the teacher will follow through and deliver the letters the students have written. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the teacher sent out the letters without corrections and let the readers act as the teacher and see how corrections they would make — both memory wise and grammatically.”
Too many of us choose our life’s distractions and then complain we’re “too busy” with not enough time for more important pursuits. I see people wasting incredible amounts of time — and with it, their lives — through escapist endeavors. It’s all about priorities.
If anyone feels compelled to write a letter or card to nursing home residents, it’s not a difficult assignment, according to administrators at long-term care facilities. You could contact an assisted living community in your neighborhood and ask for its activities director or executive administrator.
“They can ask how many residents they have, and possibly their first names. Because of HIPAA laws we cannot share their entire names,” said Danielle Balek, senior lifestyle counselor at Rittenhouse Village at Portage.
“This is a wonderful thing to offer. So many residents feel isolated in nursing homes and even in independent living facilities where we restrict visitors unless they are essential caregivers to keep out COVID,” said Michele Wise, an administrator at Pines Village Retirement Communities in Valparaiso.
One other thing to keep in mind: not every nursing home resident is a sob story.
Jim Taylor, of Naperville, Illinois, read my previous two columns with a smile on his face.
“When one of our sons was in junior high, the ongoing assignment was to send letters to specific residents of a local nursing home. This exercise culminated in a class trip to said nursing facility,” Taylor wrote via email.
“Upon meeting his pen pal, my son was advised by her that she had thrown all of the letters away, unopened. She then offered him a cigarette.”
Taylor’s son felt several emotions all at once, “a mixture of sadness, humor and reality.”
“Thank you for your work on this column. It’s a good memory,” Taylor told me. “That son is now 29 and a nonsmoker.”