We stole it. Their last years. For 21 months, I worked in a Covid-locked nursing home as an entertainer, and later, activities director. We stole it.

Early on in that stern time, a resident who became a friend crept out to a common area, and we both sat, fugitives from rules of the state.

“Why are they sending me to my room like a child? I’ve got congestive heart failure. I’m dying. I don’t care about the virus.”

I looked back, a reluctant jailer. “I know, I know.” My mask blew my hot air back at me. Coward.

The days ground on. She went to the hospital, but took her phone. A few more days passed, marked by the food trays arriving to each room because the dining hall was forbidden. Everything was forbidden. I emailed her.

Hey Carol!

No need to reply, just wanted to wave, and say I’m thinking of you. Hope you’re feeling OK!

Josh

My phone dinged at the stoplight two minutes from work. I looked at it. There was no danger. There weren’t any cars on the road. Red light, green light, lockdown blues.

You are so sweet, thank you! I’m going to hospice on …

Punch me in the stomach. The mask didn’t help. Jotted her a quick reply, promising a better one after work. The evening finally arrived. Keys clacking, I said goodbye, told her how much she meant, how I’d think of her when looking at the stars.

A few days later, I saw her stuff by the door. I wobbled.

She was the first of many, robbed of fresh air and sunlight and Christmas with family and Mother’s Day when people at the back of the building couldn’t have visitors at their windows.

“Too swampy in the yard back there,” the bosses said. What a cruel idol safety is.

I wrote a book about the time. Thankfully, there wasn’t elder abuse at my community – at least by state definition. There was no mass dying of Covid (although we had some losses in the building). The drama on our little island of humanity wasn’t ‘stacked bodies in halls’, or filth, or rogue nurses.

Rather, the shocking thing was how quickly the everyday, the legal, the state-sanctioned, turned into tyranny and madness in the most ordinary of ways.

Some of us chafed. Some participated, channelling fear into becoming the hands and feet of the Rules. I did both. Now I know what I’m capable of. Now I’m careful.

The residents faded away quietly and died in empty rooms.

A biting February wind set me shivering in the parking lot, but it was more than the cold that set the bitter clench of my friend’s son’s teeth as we talked. They barely let him get his dead mother’s stuff. We both mourned her as we lamented the fever dream that gripped the nation. We both could have spat, but the masks held us back as we cast burning glances down at freezing asphalt. “They couldn’t wait to get rid of me,” he said.

“I know,” I said. My mask blew hot air back in my face.

I moved, as planned. I wrote a book, as suggested by one of the ladies so robbed. I told her it would be dedicated to her. She died two weeks before I finished the first chapter.

But first, I wrote everyone this letter when I left. I had to. Oh, how they changed me with their patience, their grace, their bravery and their suffering. But how do you say goodbye? It became a chapter in the book. This is what it said.

Thank You – A Salute

It seems like I’ve been saying “goodbye” for months, but, before I go, I wanted to thank you all for the lessons and shining examples you’ve been. In short, thank you for growing me up.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still tap-dance badly in the lunchroom when I come back to visit, but: thanks for showing me what matters. For most of my adult life, fun was the goal. A guitarist by trade, I felt smug that I had ‘beaten the system’ by getting to rock out all day.

Still, as time went by, a hollowness crept in, as if the years were corroding the strings. Recently, the author and psychologist Jordan Peterson made a profound impact with his 12 Rules for Life (my favourite book now), and he states that happiness is the wrong goal. Meaning should be pursued instead, and that is found in the voluntary acceptance of responsibility.

This theory pointed out that I was acting like Peter Pan. All well and good, but what to do about it? Enter Covid, and you guys. Every day coming to work – mask up, goggles on, the crushing rules, the constant pull to give in to perpetuating the fear and petty tyranny, the wrestling with uncertainty, and you guys… there you were, walking with calmness, strength and a steely resolve.

Sure, we all had our days of sadness and desperation, but even quarantined in your rooms, your example shone forth to the rest of us on how to act with fortitude and grace. “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:14, KJV)

Isn’t it astonishing at how true that is? Even locked away, you shone forth. I played over a thousand shows on my DJ cart, and watched. Every day, picking up that responsibility. Each time, getting blessed with your example, honoured to walk together through such an ‘unprecedented’ (how I hate that word) event. My peers often talk about starting a non-profit to experience meaning. I wish they could have walked with us. I tell them about you often.

From the sombre task of arriving at the End, to the joyous goofing around and laughs that we shared (and often during the same hour), I will be forever grateful. You guys are more than adopted grandparents or friends – we’re brothers and sisters in arms. I’m proud to have marched with you. I’ll surely miss the daily path, but I do hope we can stay in touch. But for now, keep shining. We all see your good works.

Josh

Read More: A Tribute to the Victims of Lockdown