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machado: have we tossed aside the idea of dignity?
the last year has been fraught with sadness and anxiety, but we need to remember the dignity of the vulnerable
jun 7 2021
5 minute read
it doesn't take much to honour the humanity of others.
getty
every afternoon, i walk my dogs past a small basketball court. the cement is cracked, with little bits of moss growing through, but the nets and hoops are brand new — the no-noise ones so as not to annoy those living in the nearby houses.
until recently, the scene has been the same — four or five teenagers flexing their ball skills, yelling excitedly each time they make a shot and teasing the one who just can’t get a basket.
but since last wednesday, things have been different. the mood is just as collegial, only the players are smaller — maybe nine or ten years old. they bounce a brown ball between them, some earnestly trying to get a slam dunk while the others dare each other to successfully spin the ball on their finger.
it’s what is happening on the sidelines, though, that steals my attention every time.
there’s a woman, i figure she’s a grandma. most days, she has a black sparkly pashmina slung around her shoulders and dark brown sunglasses perched on top of her head, holding her wavy grey hair in place. she doesn’t smile often — in fact, her look is intense and serious, maybe even a little sad — until the ball gets close, that is. that’s when she gets excited.
she stands with her arms outstretched, hooking them under the armpits of a small boy with short rumpled brown hair, and shiny black eyes that quietly follow the play. with long silver braces that run along his legs from his ankle to his thigh, the boy’s body is still unless the woman makes it move — a gentle lean-in so his fingertips can brush the ball or a quick arm raise to high-five a teammate. a kick and a shuffle is a little more effort, but she does it, pushing his leg with hers, fatigue showing for just a second, until he squeals with joy, and then it’s forgotten.
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“that’s dignity for ya,” says an elderly man, shuffling past me, pointing at the woman with his metal cane.
it was the second time that word had crossed my mind that day.
just an hour earlier, my seventy-something neighbour called to ask if i could meet him at his house to help carry his wife, who has been living with alzheimer’s disease for a few years, inside the house from the car. they were on their way back from the hospital where she had gotten stitches after falling in her house holding a glass that shattered underneath her.
“i’m not sure i can do it alone,” he texted.
once she was settled on the sofa, i picked up the bottom half of a jagged glass that was lying underneath a cupboard, as he sighed, muttering something about how he always feared something like that would happen. he looked defeated.
“you might have to think about getting some plastic,” i said, too fast, without even thinking. and then something worse, “you think she would notice?”
i felt badly immediately. what a stupid, unaware thing to say.
“the thing is,” he said softly, “i think she would, just like she cries when she overhears me telling a sad story — she will know.”
his words brought me back to a couple of years ago when my father, who had dementia, was in a long-term care home. i had watched him go from building parts of houses, fixing cars and debating politics to dribbling soup down his chin and wearing diapers. as his disease progressed, the day came when a plastic pink sippy cup — the same kind my kids used when they were babies — was put down on the table in front of him filled with milk for dinner. “for safety,” the personal support worker said with a smile.
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my dad, who didn’t know who i was, who cuddled stuffed animals and talked to the framed pictures of strangers on the hallway wall, the man who all the personal support workers said was the most well-mannered, easygoing resident, pursed his lips tightly and refused to drink from the cup, no matter what we did.
when even one of his favourites — chocolate milk — wasn’t enough to get him to drink, my mom and i lobbied for a glass as an experiment. and yup, you probably can guess what happened next.
my mom and i did our best to get him a glass whenever we could. just like she would give him a shave every morning, complete with a splash of his favourite cologne and insist that he have a clean shirt to wear every day — even though no one thought it mattered to him — making him drink from a sippy cup was about more than the cup. it was actually about preserving his dignity and valuing him simply as a human being, regardless of his abilities or cognition. it was also about injecting a little joy into an otherwise difficult and scary existence.
sadly, it’s not always an easy and innate thing, to treat others with dignity and respect, especially when the other is vulnerable. like the grandma in the basketball court and my friend and his wife, helping to enrich the lives of those who depend on us in really big ways is hard work.
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often it’s a role that we would never choose for ourselves, one that comes with tears, frustration and sadness. but it’s also advocacy in its rawest form — when what you do will not change the outcome, but you do it anyway because that’s not a good enough reason not to try. plus, there’s always a chance of the most wonderful reward at the end of all the effort: the deliciously joyous laugh of a little boy who gets to “play” basketball and the happy sigh of someone who, despite having lost so much, finds comfort — even if only small — in the familiar.
the last year and a bit has been fraught with sadness and anxiety, and frankly, lots of ugliness. just one glance at the news each day and it’s pretty clear that humans can be pretty terrible to each other. and, sometimes it has felt that we have lost the meaning of dignity, or at least tossed it to the side. from the horrific care in ltc homes and relentless police brutality and racism , to most recently, the reigniting of the unfathomable abuses that happened in canada’s residential schools . all of it is too much during a time when many of our own lives are well, just hard.
but maybe on your next walk, or when you peek out your window, you too can spot a grandma, or a wonderful neighbour to remind you that despite all the hate, there are still good people out there.
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lisa machado is executive producer of healthing.ca.
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