Corona Diaries

Graham and Molly

“Gosh…. I have never before actually listed all these activities [that Molly does]!!! The woman is

superhuman! This is some sandwich to manage! A veritable triple-decker!!”

Background Information

Graham, Male and Molly, Female are a retired married couple. Molly is aged 55-64 and Graham, 64-

75. The first month of their diary is used to explain the life of Molly and everything she does for her

family and the second month is used by Graham as a letter to his grandson.

April 2020

THE SANDWICH GENERATION LOCKED DOWN

Before the virus, my wife, Molly, aged 61 (retired) was a classic representative of the “Sandwich

Generation”. This “generation” is generally defined as those people of mature years, who have

considerable responsibility for the well-being of elderly parents, and, also, who are providing the normal

grandparenting duties of care towards their young (and proliferating) grandchildren.

Of course, nowadays, there is a tendency for ageing parents to survive longer and longer into very old age,

and, also, for the grandchildren to be born ever later in the lives of their busy parents, so the timespan of

the ‘sandwich generation’ is extending.

The Sandwich Generation is a generation whose time, energy, efforts, emotions and finances are

squeezed between the very differing pressures and demands of relatives whose ages may range from two

weeks to 92 years!

For a few years before the virus, Molly’s own two adult daughters were raising their own little families,

resulting in four grandchildren between the ages of two weeks and nine years. Both mothers have full-time

jobs, and they live quite near us, in two households, about four miles from our home.

Amongst the activities that Molly undertook on a very regular basis with her grandchildren were school-

runs, baby-sitting, childcare, tea-time visits, parties, cinema or theatre trips, shopping excursions, holiday

accompaniment, taxi-runs, sleep overs, and birthdays, or “birth-weeks” as we call them, because the

celebrations tend to be somewhat prolonged!

As far as Molly’s parents are concerned, they are aged 86 and 89, and live over 100 miles from us, in the

West Midlands. Her father has been infirm for some years, but has insisted on remaining at home, where

her mother has found it increasingly difficult to care for him.

A year or so before the virus, Molly arranged for a network of carers to provide domestic assistance in her

parents’ home on a daily basis. She mainly managed their rotas, their payments and their duties remotely,

from our home. Telephone calls of about one hour’s duration between Molly and her mother were a daily

occurrence.

Molly would normally spend five or six days every month staying at her parents’ house in order to assist her

mother in caring for her father, and “to give her a break”.

In addition, she coordinated her father’s healthcare needs including hospital appointments, surgery visits,

prescription orders and reviews, medicine deliveries, nursing attendance, baths etc. This was a very time-

consuming activity, involving many telephone conversations. The co-ordination of appointments for a very

old man with so many professionals is not an easy task!

She also has Power of Attorney for both health and financial aspects of her parents’ life.

Gosh…. I have never before actually listed all these activities!!! The woman is superhuman! This is some

sandwich to manage! A veritable triple-decker!!

Then came the VIRUS!!!…………MOLLY TAKES OVER THE STORY…….

We have now been in lock-down, self-isolating, for 44 days.

During this time, I have not been able to visit my elderly parents, and it has been horrible not being able to

see my grandchildren, especially the newest little girl who was born only last week. Whilst my

responsibilities towards my relatives remain very much the same as before the virus, my actual activities

have changed significantly.

I have reduced the number of carers attending my parents home to two essential people, because there is

an obvious risk of infection from people coming into their house from outside.

It is harder to co-ordinate the delivery of food and medication when I am unable to be there with them.

I certainly have more time at home to plan various issues, but that planning, in itself, is very time

consuming. For example, today I have spent over three hours on the phone to my mother, to various

hospitals, to surgeries and pharmacies, all in the West Midlands, in order to ensure that regular medication

for my parents will be delivered on time, and that a hospital appointment for my father will be available in

three day’s time.

Overall, I have to coordinate the delivery of 22 items of medicine and health equipment to my parents’

house, from at least 3 different sources. This would, of course, still be the case even if there was no

pandemic, but the lack of personal contact at the current time certainly makes the exercise much more

difficult.

Earlier this week, my 89 year old father required a surgery visit to diagnose a painful health problem which

has arisen since the lock-down commenced. Normally, pre-virus, I would travel the 100 miles to their

home so that I could accompany him on such an occasion, as it is getting very difficult for my mother to

cope with the driving, and with his lack of mobility. As it was, she had to take him and manage the

situation as best she could. He now has to have a hospital scan, and I am concerned about them visiting

a hospital whilst this pandemic still puts them at risk.

I am worried about the strain being placed on my mother, and I am distressed that I cannot visit them to

give my mother a break, possibly by allowing her to come down to our house where my husband could look

after her, but such an interchange is not an option under current lock-down regulations.

With regards to food delivery, my parents have received regular on-line deliveries for a number of years,

but it has got harder and harder to secure delivery slots for them during the lock-down. Luckily, the

Waitrose Supermarket has registered them as priority cases, so I can now get slots for them more easily.

However, I have to wake up very early on certain mornings to join the on-line queue of maybe 20,000

callers awaiting a slot! Even when the orders for groceries and household items are placed, there are

frequently adjustments to be made depending on the availability of goods, so it’s back to the end of the

queue again!!

So that part of the “sandwich” has changed under self-isolation: I have gained more time in my own home,

but the pressure of organising an additional household from a distance has certainly consumed that time,

and increased the emotional strain.

As far as my grandchildren are concerned, being unable to see them has been a most unpleasant

experience, especially being unable to meet my new granddaughter. Technology, in the form of Facetime,

is very helpful, and we can at least see each other, but it does not provide cuddles, kisses or cwtches, and

it is difficult to cope with not knowing when I will first see our new arrival in the flesh. Also, I cannot provide

support to my daughter as she recovers from the Caesarean Section she underwent during the birth: it

must be very difficult for her and her husband to cope without the normal assistance provided by “Nanny” in

these early post-natal days and weeks.

It must, also, be very difficult for my daughters and their partners to teach their children during Home-

School. I really miss seeing and doing things with my grandchildren. No hugs, no kisses, no baking or

playing games. This is the change in my life which hurts the most. But there is one good side to the lock-

down, in that the children are seeing a lot more of their parents, who have much more time to devote to

them whilst being “furloughed” at home.

Of course, the children are getting bored with being at home all the time: my five-year old granddaughter

came in from playing in the garden this week and declared “I’ve had enough of all this!”. Out of the mouths

of babes and children??

I know how they feel, but our staying at home is protecting them, as well as the NHS, who are doing an

unbelievable job.

So, what of the Sandwich Generation……we still have our responsibilities and our duties of care towards

the youngsters and the elders, but, under self-isolation, some of those duties have become much more

difficult to undertake, whilst others have been more painful to endure. Physically, the lock-down has

restrained my ability to care for my extended family, whilst emotionally, the last month has been one of

pressure and, there has been activity……. albeit from the confines of my own armchair……. with a

sandwich in my hand!

May 2020

WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE (virus) WAR, GRANDAD?

(Prompted by the birth of a grandchild in May 2020!

Well, Laddie, your Grandma and I had very busy lives before the virus arrived! Although we had both been

retired from work for quite a few years, we had very full diaries almost every day of every week.

Socially, we regularly met up with small groups of friends, we enjoyed meals out in pubs and restaurants,

we liked to travel for short holidays and week-end breaks, and, of course, we had plenty of child-care

responsibilities for you, Laddie, and your three little cousins! I had quite a few meetings and functions to

attend, your Grandma enjoyed coffee mornings with various friends, and we both loved going to the theatre

or the cinema. In addition, your Grandma spent a lot of time caring for her mother and father who were

VERY old at that time, and lived over one hundred miles away.

Those were the days……the days before the virus!

When the virus arrived in the UK, the government closed down all places of entertainment, they stopped all

social gatherings, and we were told to “STAY AT HOME”, unless there was a very essential reason to

travel. In the first few days of this LOCK-DOWN, as it was called, I remember one scientific advisor telling

us on the television that this was going to be “a MARATHON, and NOT A SPRINT”. I found that to be a

very strong message!

So that was how our lives were going to progress, and we had to cancel all those diary appointments that I

mentioned earlier. In fact, my diary contained twenty-one appointments of various sorts, for just the first

week of the lock-down, ALL OF WHICH HAD TO BE CANCELLED! That gives you an idea of what busy

lives we led previously!

My first activity in the new circumstances was to clear my diary for the foreseeable future! For the first

forty days of lock-down we cancelled over seventy appointments in all. It was difficult to know when, or

whether, they would ever be re-scheduled in the very uncertain future ahead of us.

One thing I did when the lockdown occurred was learn to use a lot more TECHNOLOGY than I had ever

done before! As a family, we set up a WHATSAPP group which was great to keep us in touch with one

another. There were nine or ten family households belonging to the group, and we used the app on a daily

basis. We also learned to use the ZOOM social platform for live linkage of all the family households. This

was mainly used on a Saturday evening for a good old gossip and a general knowledge QUIZ. That got

quite competitive at times, but, of course, we couldn’t come to physical blows. Just the occasional, light-

hearted, “verbal”!

We used technology to do all our shopping, we never entered a shop for over twelve weeks!! In fact, I took

£100 out of the bank on the day before i went into lockdown, and the money stayed in my wallet

throughout. We used on-line payments for everything. All our groceries were ordered on-line and were

delivered a day or two after the order was placed. Even my medicines were delivered by the local

pharmacist!

I also started watching the many different television programmes on YOUTUBE. It was great fun to see all

the old rugby matches from my youth, as well as the many theatrical performances that never made it onto

the main channels.

Every day we would watch the “Briefings” from Downing Street on the BBC television. These provided us

with lots of information and statistics about the spread of the virus, and the efforts being made to keep us

all safe. I didn’t envy those politicians, doctors and scientists who had such stressful duties to undertake.

As a way of keeping ourselves busy, your Gran and I started learning to play the harmonica. We watched

lessons on YOUTUBE and sent off for two mouth organs. We made some progress but found it difficult to

fit in enough time to practice playing!!!

This was one of the strange things about being isolated in lockdown: we found that time flew by, and there

were usually too few hours in the day to complete all the things we wanted to do! Time never dragged,

and, surprisingly, the weeks and months seemed to fly by!!

The arrival of the weekly grocery order was quite an occasion and required detailed planning! The delivery

man would leave the goods on the floor near the front door. Your Gran, suitably gloved, would then bring

the groceries into the house and place them on the floor.

She would sort out any items to be quarantined for three days and put them in the garage. Other items

were sprayed and wiped with cleansing materials, before being placed in the fridge. Fresh vegetables and

fruit were carefully decanted from their containers into our own bags and stored in the appropriate places.

Your Gran wasn’t going to allow any virus into her kitchen! Finally, all surfaces were thoroughly wiped

down, and all our hands were properly washed! It really was an exhausting operation!!!

During lockdown, we learned the ZIG-ZAG walk!!! We were allowed out of the house to ‘exercise’ once a

day. At our age this took the form of a walk of about two or three miles every day. However, we were

instructed to keep our distance from other people, so it was quite funny to watch people ‘ZIG-ZAGGING’

across the roads, pavements, and footpaths to avoid getting too close to other walkers or cyclists. Most of

our walks took far longer than they would have done if we went in a straight line!!!

Oh yes, I also took part in a social survey for Swansea University…. that was fun, too!!