I'm David Remnikin, each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour.

My colleagues and I unpack what's happening in a very complicated world.

You'll hear from the New Yorker's award-winning reporters and thinkers, Jelani Cobb on race

and justice, Jill Lapor on American history, Vincent Cunningham and Gia Tolentino on culture,

Bill McKibbin on climate change and many more.

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From PRX's radio toopia, this is Radio Diaries.

I'm Joe Richmond.

Last week, for the first time in a year, I visited my mom and her retirement home in Washington,

DC.

She and the other residents have been in lockdown during the pandemic, but with a rollout

of the COVID vaccines, places like my moms are now opening up.

For the past year in most nursing homes and assisted living facilities, residents have

been kept apart.

Not just from their families, but from each other.

They ate meals alone in their rooms.

They met new grandchildren on Zoom and some were alone when they died.

My mother was cut off from the world and people she knew, but she did okay.

But the fact is, many people grew more isolated as they age.

Even in normal times, friends and partners pass away, family members and kids get distracted

by their own lives.

...