Topic: Is anyone else struggling with not being able to see their parents?

[non capisco]

If you'd told me five years ago that I didn't have to bother going to visit my folks for at least three months AND I didn't have to go into work and the government were possibly going to be paying 80% of my wages so I can sit in and watch films for days on end, if someone had told me THAT....well, presumably for me to be at all pleased about the situation they'd have left out the bit where there's a potentially fatal respiratory virus ravaging the land but take out that trifling little detail and I'd have been moderately alright with it. What's that, there'll be a legitimate reason to avoid social gatherings you can't be arsed with as well in this hypothetical dream land you're conjuring? To quote David Letterman after seeing Future Islands perform on his show "Wonderful! I'll take all of that you've got!"

Five years ago my mum didn't have steadily worsening dementia, though, and now I have nothing but tender thoughts for the silly old bat who for some reason for the last fifteen years held the persistent and entirely false belief that I was a massive fan of the band Maroon 5, and this was before the Alzheimers. Spend more time with Mum, that was my only real plan for 2020. Be there for her because she's better when you're there. Take some pressure off your Dad, let him get out a bit and go carp fishing and let him clear his head. That was going to be my 2020. I didn't really care about anything else. Going to Primavera with my good friends Stu and Nags will be awesome, looking forward to that, but mostly just spend time with your mum while there's still lucidity there and while you can still laugh and share memories and hug her without her thinking you're the postman trying it on or something.

And then...this happens. I work in Central London at a job that I still bewilderingly have to sometimes go in for at the moment because the diabolical fat Jimmy Savile lookalike cunt who runs the country has his shit haired head buried in the sand or is being advised to deliberately wipe out loads of the population by that weird eugenicist goblin mate of his. I'm still symptom free but potentially crawling with coronavirus, lousy with it from head to foot. I can't in all good conscience go down to Kent and waft that directly at my mum and dad, neither are in the best of health and I don't fancy either of their chances with it. In my darkest moments and as this thing looks like it's going to stretch out for years I start spiralling into anxiety and wonder if I'll ever physically see them again.

Bit of a vent there. I'm sure a lot of you are in a similar position.

I'd also like to point out I have never been into Maroon 5, what the hell was she on about?

[shiftwork2]

First in with: yes, however they're both dead.

It is the primary concern amongst people I've spoken to around my age.  You just have to hope they comply with the advice.  My mum, for example, was on her own in her later years and the advice to hide away may have broken her tbh.  Sympathy and understanding for everyone in this situation.

[jobotic]

Yes. My mum has to go to hospital on Monday. I pray that it isn't someone with the virus that sees her.

Might have to take shopping to my dad and leave it in the garden at some point.

The thought of them getting it and dying and never seeing them again. Christ.

I said to my mum when it w first got bad "please isolate yourself, I don't want you to die on a bed in a leisure centre hall" and regretted it but I was very upset.

They've been a lot better than all the biddies I've seen walking round town all week though.

[Malcy]

Saw my mum at the front door to collect something on my way to visit my Gran last Friday. That's once in over 2 weeks now. My mum rang me earlier today. She had to deliver very bad news and had considered coming round (2 mins by car) to tell me but decided against it because of this fucking thing.

My aunt has been told that despite efforts there is nothing they can do about the cancer in her brain. I'm devastated. I'm also devastated that I shouldn't really be giving my mum a big hug because of what it MAY cause when that is what is really needed.

This whole thing has really fucking pissed me off. First it was the comedy gigs, theatre, and concerts I had lined up for the month being cancelled. Then it was something as trivial as less Eastenders on the TV.

Now it's taking the fucking piss. I'll be going to see my parents tomorrow and fuck any kind of "oh you shouldn't do that, think about the people you might infect etc etc". My mum needs me and I need my mum.

Really had enough of the whole thing. I can't even go see my 96 year old gran who had a fall late last year and relies on people taking her up shopping and more importantly a bit of fucking company. If I drove it wouldn't be an issue but it's 2 trains to get there.

Fuck knows how she'll take the news when she's told. I'd go stay but I don't want to take the risk. I could cycle there in a few hours though and I think that's what I'm going to have to do.

Deal with it all one step at a time. At the moment my big concern is whether I should spend the £4.36 I have in the bank to last me 16 days on a few extra cans because it's the only thing keeping me sane at this minute.

Bit of a rant sorry. I'm just so all over the place. I'm happy to stand in the back garden and talk to my folks through the window of that's what it takes. But what happens going forward? If this goes on for months and my Aunt passes how do we hold a funeral? How do we support each other through grief.

Fuck this whole situation.

Edit - what I mainly came here to say we if you've been nowhere and your parents haven't either then just visit as normal if you can walk it. Nobody really knows what can happen with this whole thing so if it's safe cherish your loved ones.

[DolphinFace]

I've no idea how concerned to be about my parents. They're both 60 and in seemingly perfect health. I spend 99% of the day assuming they'll be fine and then, in the dead of night I suddenly imagine, what if I never see them again!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Nah, they'd invited themselves up for April and leant on me so I'm quids in really.

[Buelligan]

First in with: yes, however they're both dead.

Second in with that.  First in with turn on the light then.

But laughing aside, it's just beyond sad, really is.  My only, utterly useless, suggestion is to keep in contact by phone or emails.  I do this with my lovely lovely, severely health-compromised, brother.  I do understand that awful feeling that you might never see them, hug them, look them in the eye, again.  That you might not be there just when they need you.  That you might not even be able to bury them.  It's too hard.  And so I keep up the old contactless contact and pray to the god of small animals[1] that all will be right.  It's all we can do.

1.	our personal deity from childhood

[Alberon]

Mum’s finally accepted me and Mrs Alberon needs to do the shopping for her and she’ll be happy enough pottering around the garden. My sister and me will step up calling and FaceTiming her. Any negatives from not seeing her is far outweighed by wanting to keep her safe.

My parents in law might have a harder time as my dad in law is a keen golfer and hates being stuck inside.

[bgmnts]

I hope my biological father actually has the virus, as well as gout, arse cancer and a gammy leg.

[Pingers]

Heart: everything will be ok

Head: your dad's in his 90s with a heart condition for fuck's sake, your mum's well into her 80s with high blood pressure, and doesn't see any reason not to go to the village shops because she lived through the blitz and has a fatalist world view anyway. You'll be lucky if you see them together again

[purlieu]

Having lived with my parents for the best part of five years and been on the verge of moving out, it’s a very weird situation because I don’t actually want to spend the next few months in a building with my mother. At the same time, I feel lucky to not have to worry about what they’re up to from the opposite side of the country. My partner’s parents are both old and frail and on the other side of the country, as the worst of this managed to come along as she was visiting, so that is enough to worry me, especially knowing how close she is to her dad and how terrified she is of losing him.

[Tombola]

My parents are both 70. Tory voters, not taking this seriously.

I'm going to call Ma on Sunday for Ma's Day and try to explain how an epidemic works and how my absence is to try to save her life but it's like a fucking suicide pact signed in the early 80s that cannot be challenged.

[Cerys]

My mum and I speak on the phone for an hour at least once a week.  She and my dad are being sensible - only going out when necessary and staying away from other people.  My dad's a radio amateur so he can maintain some semblance of a social life from his shack, and I've just introduced my mum to Blender so she's got 3D modelling to keep her busy.  And yet ... I want to go and give them both a hug.  I'd just need to get on the train to Machynlleth and push myself up a hill, and I'd be there.  But that can't happen.

[H-O-W-L]

My mum is 58 and my stepdad is 62. Both are reducing social contact but still going to shops and the like. I live with them at the moment so I'm deathly terrified that when I go back to work I'll contract it, spread it to them, then be left an orphan.

[Dewt]

Just looking ahead here, what is the best way to find out if a parent has died, should they go silent? I have no third party connection to my dad to let me know if he dies and I live thousands of miles away. What's the quickest official register of a death, and will one necessarily be maintained during this crisis? I simply won't be able to tell if a parent is hospitalised if they died.

(one for the bleak thread there)

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

My parents are blasé idiot boomers who assume they are indestructible and have always steadfastly refused to take my advice.*


*One example from many. They broke from the tradition of driving thousands of miles to Italy and France for their holiday one year and looked into flying to Amsterdam for a week. Clearly if I know pretty much anything it's where flies there, how much it will cost and what the airports are like. Despite telling them over and over it would be prohibitively expensive to choose a very popular bank holiday weekend and fly from Humberside Airport (I mean come on) they refused to listen to me, and after making the point across several weeks I was advised to 'Look, just drop it OK, we have decided what we want to do'

Lo and behold they got off their arses, did research that would have taken them 60 seconds and discovered as I'd advised, that they could fly from Doncaster and back and save £350, which they ended up doing while sheepishly not bothering to acknowledge anything I'd said.

Now I've typed all that out I rather hope they die tonight. Well actually, no I don't.

[Pranet]

My Mum is old and frail. She depends on me and my sister to do shopping and other things- eg my sister changes her bed, I do the garden, we both do bits around the house. Dealing with mail etc, all sorts.

She also relies on us pretty heavily for any sort of social contact.

My sister is a primary school teacher and is one of the 2 teachers in her school who has to go into work from next week to look after keyworker children, so she is going to get it sooner or later. I also have a job which means I am going to get it.

We are both terrified that we are going to give the virus to our mum, it will definitely kill her.

But also what happens if we both get it? Or if we go into total lockdown and I can't go and see her? (I can't drive so have to use the bus).

This is the main thing that is causing me anxiety.

At the moment when dropping off shopping we have decided to go into the house briefly as possible and keep our distance. But still talk a bit, find out if anything needs doing.

[Buelligan]

Hopefully, if both you and your sister have to isolate it won't be at the same time but, just saying that it will be, maybe now (in advance) is the time to check out other possible avenues for help.  Is there some kind of promise-swap you could do with a trusted friend or colleage?  In the event of one becoming ill, the other will step up and safeguard both sets of vulnerable dependents.

I saw this group https://covidmutualaid.org/ promoted on a Novara Media vid - maybe, they could help (or you could help them)?  Hope it works out.

[Attila]

My dad: he's been dead since 2010, and I don't miss him in the slightest.

My mother: lives in Florida with my non-tosser brother. She's nearly 91 now, and really starting to get loopy mentally. I speak with her on the phone once a week; she has no real grasp on the current situation (even though she likes to watch the news and reads a lot). Calls usually consist (as they have over the past couple of years) of her telling me how bored she is, how she wishes she'd never moved to FL, when am I coming back to live with her (she hated every second of when I did live with her after my dad died, and when I go to visit my brother now, she's horrendously nasty to me the entire time I'm there).

She does, however, think the president is an absolute imbecile, and she gets pretty creative explaining to me why he's such a dumb fuck.

So, in answer to the question: no, not in my case.

[Pingers]

Just looking ahead here, what is the best way to find out if a parent has died, should they go silent? I have no third party connection to my dad to let me know if he dies and I live thousands of miles away. What's the quickest official register of a death, and will one necessarily be maintained during this crisis? I simply won't be able to tell if a parent is hospitalised if they died.

(one for the bleak thread there)

Stuff like this is grim. This may be wholly impractical, but there are a number of PIR-based systems that can be installed in homes which will essentially tell you if the occupant stops moving about. Often they are used by providers of 'telecare' and someone in a central contact centre gets the emergency services out if they are worried. I'd imagine this sort of thing is pretty advanced in the US. It does depend on a) the person in question agreeing to have it installed, b) spending money on it, and c) someone installing it, which in times of social distancing is not straightforward.

[Dex Sawash]

I'm struggling with being fully able to visit my mother.
She is in a oldies apartment that does meals, acivities and entertainment but no medical care. Just one step removed from nursing home. They go on a full lockdown for seasonal flu a few times every winter no guests, meals delivered to rooms,.etc.

They shut down for 2 days last week because of possible norovirus but reopened when that was all clear. They're all playing cards and dominos every day and eating in the dining room again.

On the plus side, at least the corporate stooge facility manager lives on site and will get it too.

[Pranet]

Hopefully, if both you and your sister have to isolate it won't be at the same time but, just saying that it will be, maybe now (in advance) is the time to check out other possible avenues for help.  Is there some kind of promise-swap you could do with a trusted friend or colleage?  In the event of one becoming ill, the other will step up and safeguard both sets of vulnerable dependents.

I saw this group https://covidmutualaid.org/ promoted on a Novara Media vid - maybe, they could help (or you could help them)?  Hope it works out.

Thanks- there are numbers on the local parish council website I found out today, and I will look at your link as well- seems there are a mixture of groups being set up at the moment. I would like to help actually but currently with work and family worries I don't have the mental energy- perhaps if I adjust a bit to the situation.

[Dex Sawash]

I'm struggling with being fully able to visit my mother.
She is in a oldies apartment that does meals, acivities and entertainment but no medical care. Just one step removed from nursing home. They go on a full lockdown for seasonal flu a few times every winter no guests, meals delivered to rooms,.etc.

They shut down for 2 days last week because of possible norovirus but reopened when that was all clear. They're all playing cards and dominos every day and eating in the dining room again.

On the plus side, at least the corporate stooge facility manager lives on site and will get it too.

Corporate stooge facility manager has it now

[Gurke and Hare]

Five years ago my mum didn't have steadily worsening dementia, though, and now I have nothing but tender thoughts for the silly old bat

Only just seen this thread, but this is me, yeah. I've now not seen my parents for over a year, and it's hard. My dad is in his 80s, but he's in as good health as can be expected, and I don't see any need to worry about seeing him again (although the silly sod won't have the vaccine - not because of any vaccine scepticism, indeed the other day he was calling for anti-vaxxers to be locked up, but because he doesn't like needles ffs), and I can also have a pretty good phone conversation with him as well, which helps. My mum though clearly has dementia, although she's never had any kind of diagnosis, and it's so hard not to be able to see her. Speaking to her on the phone is hard, because I have to drive the conversation and I have nothing to say at the moment beyond "I went for a walk to the park" because nothing is happening. She seems aware that there's a situation without really remembering the details (there's no way, for example, that she remembers the word 'coronavirus'), but it's honestly hard to have any insight into what she's aware of. Dementia is a really horrible thing to see up close. She doesn't remember a lot of detail about my family, for instance I have to keep reminding her who is older out of me and my sister, and she never really remembers where I live. I'm quite scared that if/when I do get to see her again she won't be sure who I am. It's fucking horrible, especially as I was going to make an effort to go and visit them more often before lockdown started.

[Utterdrivel]

Yes, haven't seen my old mum since Christmas 2019.

Bah gawd

[Billy]

I'm in a better situation than most here as my parents are both in their early fifties and fairly healthy, so I've been able to see them a fair few times with no problems. Both had lost a parent of their own by the time they turned 28 so I'm grateful to have them.

Grandma's in her 80s and was vaccinated a couple weeks back, I saw her in September and she's probably one of the healthiest in the family.

[Alberon]

My sister’s partner’s dad died last night from cancer. They lived some hours apart so he can’t currently even go up to see his mum. My own dad died of cancer eleven years ago and things are so much more difficult for him. There’s only so much consoling you can do over Zoom.

I don’t know if the current situation contributed to an earlier death or not. I heard recently the partner’s dad was very anaemic and needed a transfusion, but I don’t know if his care suffered in the pandemic enough to end his life earlier than in normal times.

[JarrowMonkey]

My mam isn’t around any more and my dad is about as much use as tits on a fish, they divorced when I was about three, me and brother have little contact with him, but I’m missing my my auntie who is my mothers oldest sister and her husband, who looked  after me when my my mother left my step dad for being a bastard every other year till I was about fifteen
we have regular family quizzes and I see then, but it’s not the same

I’ve mentioned in another thread about my cousin who got COVID and it was touch and go, but she recovered, but her mother, not my maternal auntie is now in hospital with the ‘vid and it is looking pretty bleak, I’m not as close to that side of the family, but Christ knows what they are going through, they can’t visit her, my poor uncle must be in pieces

So my sympathy goes out to everyone on here who can’t visit or help their parents, friends and other family and non mask wearing cunts ar just cunts

[flotemysost]

I've just introduced my mum to Blender

Blimey, very open minded of her.



I'm really grateful that my parents have been sensible about it all (mum's a retired pharmacist and loathes any antivaxxer bollocks with a passion, and generally they're both pretty liberal, level-headed types), and neither of them have a need to regularly leave the house which is a massive relief. In a way, my friends who have younger parents (or less middle class, tbf) have been more worried because some of their parents are still having to go out to work every day, or have kids of school age, etc.

I haven't seen them for exactly a year now - they're only on the other side of London, but I'd have no way of getting there without coming into contact with other people (it'd have to be public transport or taxi) and until they've had their second vaccine dose it just doesn't seem worth the risk.

We talk on the phone a lot, or do Skype calls with my brother (who I haven't seen since 2019), which is nice, and I'm incredibly grateful that I've got things much much easier than lots of people in that respect. Still fucking sucks though and I'm conscious that although they're both still very switched on and passionate about the world, they're not getting any younger either. Love to anyone struggling with not seeing family at the moment, it's such a cunt of a situation.

[Bently Sheds]

Last time I saw my mum was in September when she was hospitalised after a fall (at that point the restrictions on socialising were a lot more relaxed), before that was August at an arranged visit at her care home which has since gone into complete lockdown. Whilst it's true I miss seeing her, to be brutally honest she's been gone since early 2013 when her dementia took a sudden, savage hold.

Pre-COVID, visiting her at her care home would often feel like a chore that I had to perform for appearance's sake, to look like a good son, especially when she was in a combative mood. Sometimes she was aggressive and angry towards me, sometimes she was asleep, sometimes she didn't even recognise who I was - although I could tell she knew that she knew me. So it's a partial, albeit very guilty, relief that I haven't been able to go in and sit with her for these last six months or more. Am I a shit human being for feeling that way? That I'm glad I don't have to go and see my mum?