Caregivers

Darwin spent years pondering the nature of altruism, in humans, but also animals, citing in The Descent of Man caretaking behaviors among parrots and pelicans, among others. The examples fit his anti-exceptionalist thesis, the view that humans were neither separate from nor better than animals––basically that animals aren't animals. He argued for a rationale of caregiving on evolutionary grounds, separate from religion. That is, he stressed the benefits of altruism for the entire spectrum of animality, or a tree on which humans occupy a relatively small branch. I'd argue that if there are upsides for the collective where altruism is concerned, the story is different at the level of the individual, and therein lies the paradox. It's individuals who caregive, at no small personal expense to themselves, for the good of the many. As a mindset it flies in the face of the narcissism that marks the Trumpian age. 

I'm haunted by caregivers, animal and human both. In a way I feel shamed by them because of their radicality and even excess, in any age. Field researchers studying chimps, elephants, birds and so on demonstrate that Darwin was onto something, that non-human animals are and no doubt have been engaging in caregiving long before humans came on the scene. 

An episode of the PBS series, Nature, entitled "Arctic Wolf Pack," features a case in point. The matriarch of an Alaskan wolf pack, whom the scientists name Snow White, has a litter of pups that she struggles to raise during a period of scarcity––it's a real narrative with real wolves, real parents with real offspring, and not some fictional allegory. While Snow White and her mate, Alpha, scrounge what little they can find, the pups are watched over in their den by Black Spot. The documentarians aren't sure why, but she's the only one Snow White will allow in the den. It's possible she's Snow White's sibling or daughter. 

After a time, after the parents return over and over again with little to show, Black Spot begins to stand back while the pups compete for scraps. Her age and link to Snow White entitle her to a share, but time and again she demurs, allowing them to eat while going hungry herself. She begins to grow thin; she starts to fade, literally, and ultimately dies from starvation. It's difficult to watch, in part because it begs the question of the degree to which similar acts occur every day around the world, although not under the documentarian's eye. A cynic might cry, Instinct!, though I'd argue just the opposite. That would militate for self-preservation if anything; instead Black Spot chooses self-sacrifice. 

Ironically humans lionize self-sacrificing figures––they're central to most religions––though curiously those who do so the loudest often create the very scenarios that push people, and animals, to need to respond to such extremes. Historical examples are too numerous to mention, though Gaza and Ukraine come to mind. The disconnect between a caregiving ideal and a more selfish reality has been a staple in religions, and American politics, all along. Having said that, a large number of people engage in heroic acts of caregiving. 

Why do they do it when it goes so forcefully against the cultural grain? I could cite any number of examples that I witnessed personally: Wives or husbands who sacrificed their own interests, including their careers, for those of a spouse that's ill; parents caretaking sick or disabled children; humans caring for disabled or elderly animals, but also friends taking care of friends; strangers too. I'm thinking of the early days of the HIV pandemic when families abandoned their blood relatives in huge numbers, consigning them to a solitary suffering and lonely death. In Denver where we lived in the early eighties, at the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, my husband and I belonged to a group of about two dozen; we were an extended, chosen family. When the disease began to get a foothold, the group began to dwindle as one after another fell ill. It was the Reagan years and the administration engaged in a propaganda campaign about a "gay disease." Gays became pariahs, banned from many public spaces; segregated because of a panic of association. 

Families turned their backs on their own, which left queer folk and queer allies the task of looking after the afflicted. People assumed the roles of caregivers because there was no one else to do it, other than the medical staff in a few urban "AIDS wards." The tasks ranged from meal prep and pill planning to bathing, wound dressing and worse, rides to treatment, and help with end-of-life decisions. Sometimes all a person needed was someone to talk to or a hand to hold. Many caregivers had the disease themselves; others didn't and had no idea what kinds of risks they were taking; if indeed there were risks. In some cases those who were in the early stages of the diseease helped a loved one until they passed, then ended up themselves on the very same track to the grave. In time my spouse and I were the only ones left from our group to bear witness to their lives and deaths; to a lost generation. To countless acts of tenderness and care, largely among gay men though not at all entirely. It's the subject of the novel, Ojo. 

Those who took care of others during the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, before protease inhibitors came on the scene, responded to a unique moment in history, not unlike those who jumped to action at the start of Covid pandemic, before vaccines were available. Most people fled as far as they could from the infected; they fled cities while others ran into the fray. Doctors, nurses, and technicians especially witnessed an inordinate number of tragic stories, including many deaths, and sometimes they found themselves cut down by the disease. 

It's one of the main through lines of the HBO series, The Pitt. It's entirely fictional, though its filmic style lends it an eerie sense of reality. It portrays a doctor, Michael "Robby" Robinovitch, who was seriously traumatized by the experience of caregiving during the pandemic. In a series of flashbacks it becomes apparent he's haunted and in some ways debilitated by the death of his mentor, Dr. Montgomery Adamson, whom he tried to save, unsuccessfully. He suffers from a case of PTSD marked not just by a sense of failure but an increasing sense of anti-sociality. 

The message about caregiving is that it can mess a person up, especially after a loss. The fact that a person did their best is irrelevant. The effort, the expense of spirit, can leave a person hollowed out; depressed and disoriented. It can damage a person, such that a caregiver requires caregiving. If one doesn't physically pass like Black Spot, a kind of death can occur nevertheless that can take years to return from. 

I became aware of the gift of caregivers during my recent treatment for cancer. I was physically a mess; my body in a twist; far from my usual self. I had no reserves for the most basic tasks, let alone any kind of normal schedule. My husband stepped up in impressive ways, but so did friends and family. Homemade meals and flowers began showing up at our door; some brought take-out for a shared meal around our dining table; some drove me to and from radiation when I was no longer able to drive myself; one friend checked in daily with a photo to lighten my mood; another arranged a makeshift celebration at the hospital, replete with hats and banners to mark the end of treatment. I won't say any of that was easy to accept, for many reasons. The point is I wasn't in a place to protest. Quite frankly I was overwhelmed by the show of kindness. Some flew long distances to tend to some of life's most unglamorous tasks. 

It dawned on me that were the cancer to progress and take control my sense of independence could quickly get away from me. In short I understood for the first time in my life, first hand, the necessity, mystery, and again radicality of caretaking. Any act in that regard is huge; it goes against the navel-gazing ethos of the age. It need not go as far as the sacrifice of Black Spot, though a level of self-sacrifice is always involved. 

The specter of Black Spot hovers over all caregivers as an ultimate limit––who knows where things will go when a person launches on that journey? The bigger point is people sacrifice themselves every day nonetheless. It's a palliative for the modern alienated soul, but it can also be a form of resistance toward the self-centered spirit of the age, typified these days, ironically, by christian nationalists and their Me-Me-Me-Meister in the Oval Office. 

One might even argue that democracy itself is a form of caretaking, an openness to and respect for the choices and needs of others that are different from our own. It's as though political regimes over millenniums have bent away from a series of selfish royals toward the everyperson. Disregarding that liberating history, what characterizes much of the religious right in modern-day America is a rigid, fascistic insistence that the entire country do things their way whether they're believers or not. They want to take a secular country back to papal rule, or the protestant version of it, and the divine right of kings––tolerance be damned. Allowing the other to be the other is in no way part of that mindset. It's the opposite of what democracy requires. Caregiving too.