My Father Refuses to Wear a Mask

And I can’t change his mind.

I haven’t hugged my father in months.

Dad, like a lot of people I know here in Florida, has refused to believe that COVID-19 is a big deal, and thus, he refuses to wear a mask. He’s always been outwardly laid back about things in general, and I’d always thought that his nonchalance was to keep me and my sisters from being worried about things. But now it’s pretty clear that he’s more stubborn than my late grandfather’s mule.

Back in March, my sisters and parents and I decided that, since we couldn’t see each other, we needed to keep up via a group chat. This soon turned into Dad’s soapbox. He sent us articles about how masks didn’t protect us, how some countries — such as Sweden — didn’t implement a nationwide shutdown, and that the media was overplaying everything. He sent us information from doctors other than Dr. Fauci, and endless links to statistics that he felt backed his beliefs. Some of the articles were put out by news websites that were slanted heavily to the right.

Here’s one of the dozens of examples:

After a series of debates, one of my sisters chided, “Stay tuned for the next episode of Father Knows Best!”

Dad, who normally has a great sense of humor, didn’t laugh.

After several failed attempts to reply to him with links and statistics of my own, I decided to break out the big guns.

I told him that one of my good friends, a respiratory therapist at a nearby hospital, was losing her mind due to so many COVID patients being on ventilators. I told him that she wore an N95 mask, a surgical mask, goggles, and a face shield during every shift. I added that she had a very strict protocol when she got home from work: she had to take off all her clothes, put them in a garbage bag and leave them outside until she could sterilize them in the washing machine, take a shower in the guest bathroom, put on a surgical mask, and stay far away from her husband. Then I said that she had told me that if people only knew how bad it was, they’d take this thing more seriously.

I told him about my friend in NYC who had a two-month contract to work exclusively with COVID patients, who told me that, according to her, it was a “like a war zone.”

That she dealt with patients whose oxygen level was 80% on a good day.

That she had to put bodies in a refrigerated truck.

He didn’t budge. In fact, I wonder if he even absorbed the information I was giving him — information from people I trust, people who have no reason to lie. He is so good at debating topics that it makes me wonder if he even read any of my rebuttals.

One day in desperation, I asked my aunt to talk to him to see if she could get anywhere. Knowing her little brother, she told me in advance to try not to get my hopes up because he’s famously stubborn.

She reported back the next day and told me that, as she feared, he was unmoved. I sighed.

Dad’s not alone in his way of thinking. In fact, he’s got good company. Most of us, including me, don’t take well to changing their opinions. It’s like standing on a new sidewalk until the concrete hardens around their feet. It takes a jackhammer to free them from their position.

Author Elizabeth Svobod addresses this issue in the article Why Is It So Hard to Change People’s Minds?

“Most people would rather deny or downplay new, uncomfortable information than reshape their worldview to accommodate it.”

— Elizabeth Svobod

Dad’s mindset drives me crazy, especially since I myself am not afraid to have an open mind and accept truths I don’t like. This virus is especially concerning because I have a rare immune deficiency that leaves me unprotected. I get regular infusions that pump antibodies into me, but I’m still in one of those high-risk groups. If anyone would have a reason to be in denial of this disease, it would be me. I don’t want this to exist. But as much as I want to bury my head — and the rest of my body — in the sand, I have to acknowledge the seriousness of this virus and its ability to take me out.

So I wear a mask during the few times I’m out and about. I have several of them, ranging from surgical masks to a fabric mask with replaceable filters, and I ordered several Cambridge masks that won’t be in my hands until September. I offered one of them to my mom, but I’m afraid that Dad, who is pretty charismatic, has started to influence her to think like he does.

My father’s recently gone even deeper into the rabbit hole of denial. His church, which was closed for many weeks, reopened a couple of weeks ago and welcomed people on the condition that they keep clear of each other. And, by the way, masks are required for anyone who enters the building. Dad, who is a lifelong deacon and Sunday School teacher, has refused to go to church as a result.

He is a dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist. So this is further proof of his denial.

To his credit, Dad is in excellent health. He almost never gets sick. It has to be something major to bring him down. Like the flu. Like a bad stomach bug.

Like COVID-19.

None of this improves my severe anxiety. My jaws are clenched so often that I’m convinced that it’s as strong as a steel trap. I haven’t slept soundly in months. Every time I read about the new cases and deaths in Florida, I think about my parents and wonder if they’re next.

Even though I feel like my dad is playing Russian roulette with his health — not to mention the health of my mom — I have accepted the truth that no matter what I say, he’s not going to change his mind. I can send him every news article that refutes his beliefs, I can send him my Swedish friend’s long explanation about Sweden’s measures to combat the virus, I can repeat horror stories from my friends who deal with COVID-19 patients during every shift, and he’s not going to change his mind. His thinking is woven into his brain. It’s in his hard drive.

And I’ve realized that unless Jesus Christ himself rides up on a unicorn and hands him a phone that has Donald Trump on the line, who tells him to wear a mask because this is a very very bad virus, my dad’s going to hold onto this belief of his.

Truth like this is some bitter medicine to swallow, but I have no choice. Dad won’t wear a mask or acknowledge that this virus is serious. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s because he wants to be in control. Maybe it’s because he’s so concerned about the economy. Maybe it’s because he fully believes everything that President Trump says.

Maybe it’s all of the above.

Coming to terms with my father’s disbelief in this pandemic, which is as unyielding as my belief in this pandemic, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Letting it go is so difficult because I constantly have to fight the urge to provide more evidence that backs up my own beliefs: my friend Angela, who recently returned from her NYC job and told me that many of the people who died at her hospital were Hispanic men in their 20s and 30s and that she cannot stop crying because of the horrors she saw and experienced. I know that Dad will come up with reasons that New York got hit so hard. He’ll explain how our city is different, that it’s more spread out. He’ll say that the young people who died from this disease probably had underlying conditions. Like a history of vaping. Or something else that made them more at risk.

Until this passes — whenever that is — I’ll have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

And pray that someday soon, I will be able to hug my father again.