We Should Be Ashamed

I am no stranger to grief and the many stages of it. Maybe I’m just staying stuck in the really, REALLY mad phase, but my father-in-law was recently locked away from us for 19 days, without a single family member being allowed to see him, before dying and I have a few things to say about this experience.

The effects of the pandemic of fear and bureaucracy has knocked on my front door and I am now going to battle. The indoctrination program has succeeded. Evil is being called good and broken systems are reigning in tyrannical ways. Politicians, big businesses, and medical executives have been successful is separating families and human beings through means of “social distancing,” making it so we can’t see each other’s faces (which shows the essence of our emotions and responses to one another), locking people away from their loved ones and telling us that it is for our own good. We were NEVER designed to be apart and quite the opposite is true. When God made Adam he specifically said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

NOT ONCE did a single medical professional say it was in my father-in-law’s best interest to separate him from his family and NOT ONE person within the medical facility would actually move the stonewall in front of us that allowed us to be family. ALL of them disagreed with the system and yet willingly obeyed. All semblance of logical, rational, or independent thought seems obliterated.

Now before my tirade continues, there were an incredibly small handful of friends in the local medical field that spent time on behalf of our family trying to work through and understand the red tape as well. Their kindness and mercy will NEVER be forgotten. You know who you are and for the hope you gave us we are incredibly grateful!

But….The fact medical professionals can go home every night to their family is the same reason we should be allowed to go in to see ours. We weren’t asking for 15 people crowding in the room and interrupting patient care, but ONE. Just ONE person.

We asked for their help, not imprisonment. My second cowpoke even said one morning, “Mama, I think prisoners have more rights than Grandpa.”

We hired the hospital to do a job. In case anyone forgets, the medical world SHOULD work for us. They actually give us a bill for their contract labor and supplies and we have to make a payment for CARE. We so often presume that simply because they have a degree level higher in education that they know best. They may know lungs or hearts or anatomy or pharmaceuticals better, but they don’t know our loved one. We didn’t expect them to be family, but we did expect to be allowed to do our job.

I believe there are plenty of truly well-meaning individuals that work in the health care field, but I have also seen, through my own experience of cancer and six-month chemotherapy regiment in 2013 and my own child being on a ventilator for three days and hospitalized for thirteen days in 2018, that the left hand does not always talk to the right hand. The continuity of care only exists when a family member or dear friend is present to gain the whole picture and be an advocate for the patient. Details slip through the cracks.

I want you to think long and hard right now about this question: “If YOUR spouse or YOUR parent or YOUR child where kept away from you for 19 days, how would you respond?” Think about that person you love with all of your heart and you are not allowed to be there to encourage them, or hold their hand, or read scripture over them or pray over them, or kiss their forehead. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? It would be shameful and neglectful for us not to do everything we can to advocate for our family members. You are welcome to stay home in fear, but I will NOT. If you don’t want to fight for your loved ones and say “it is in their best interest,” then fine, but don’t make me wear that same fear. I will not!

If you are offended, then GOOD! It is time for those people working in these broken systems to help us rise up and break down this house of cards. To not act is to act. To not say anything is to say something. If good people continue to do nothing we will become further divided, further separated, and inhuman at best.

It is my deepest desire that in this dark and broken world that one day we will again be allowed to be family – to love on those we love – to simply have the freedom to make our own choices again. My passion to share the hope I still have in Jesus will never go away, no matter my circumstances.