My grandma lives in a retirement home. Visiting her has been very difficult for the last two years. So, we usually take her out of the home for family visits. They make her very happy.

She was supposed to spend Christmas with one part of my family. She was looking forward to it. My grandma is not going to do that now. She would be the only person in the retirement home to spend Christmas outside. It makes her uncomfortable. So she’s not going to spend it with one of her sons, three of her grandchildren and two of her great grandchildren. She’ll be spending it alone, at the retirement home. She’s in her mid-eighties.

My grandma has spent her entire life following the rules. She had covid and also got all the vaccine shots after she’s been sick. She was sick in the retirement home and no one from our family was allowed to go visit. We didn’t know if she was going to pull through, if it was bad or not. We weren’t allowed to see her, for what could’ve been the last time. She was sick and scared and alone, because the government decided family was not allowed to see each other if one of them was sick. She pulled through thankfully.

I visited my grandpa regularly after his third, or maybe it was his fourth, stroke. I was there when his health took a turn for the worse. While things were really bad already, I got to say goodbye to him, just two days before he died. Something I now wouldn’t be allowed to do with my grandma because the government said so. Great, they aren’t the ones who’ll have to live with the knowledge that their loved one died all alone, that no one in the family was allowed to go say goodbye. I’ll be the one who’ll have to live with the knowledge that I didn’t get to say goodbye that, that choice was taken from me by strangers with no connection, no understanding of what that decision would do to me, if it came to that situation.

My dad died when I was a child. He was sick for a long time, but I was too young to really understand that his illness was terminal. One night I kissed him goodnight and went to bed, the next morning my mom woke me up to tell me he had died in his sleep. It was a shock to me. I’m not a child anymore, I understand now but that doesn’t change the fact that it is important to me to get a chance to say goodbye, especially if there are signs like an illness that let us know someone won’t be with us for much longer. Thanks to the government, we might not get a chance to do that. And that is not okay. And it is not okay that people we love are all alone and scared in their last moments because of this fear mongering that is going on.

The fear and blame the government and media are pushing are responsible for my grandma not spending Christmas with her family. We were all looking forward to it, but no one more so than her. Every time she sees us, every time she says goodbye, it brings tears to her eyes. This isn’t right. The media says all we do is to protect the old, it is to help them… how is this helping them? How is this beneficial for them? How is being scared to see your family for Christmas because of the judgment you will receive from the people you share a home with, a positive thing in any shape or form? How did we let it get this far?

I would love to see her for Christmas but I’m no longer allowed to, can’t even get tested anymore to do that.

The state officially made me visiting my grandma something illegal… thank you so much for your concern towards the people you claim you have the best interest at heart for. I can see how we all benefit from not being able to spend what are probably the last couple of years of my grandma’s life with her. I am so very grateful that strangers are allowed to make those decisions for me, whatever would we do without our politicians…

Christmas is supposed to be about family, at least it was in mine… it was the one time a year I would get to see my extended family all at once… I haven’t seen most of them in two years… won’t be seeing them this year either. This makes me sad. Families who should spend time together no longer do, because of the decisions of strangers. This is not how it’s supposed to be. Families should come together in moments of crisis, not be kept or even torn apart. 

We are doing this entirely wrong.