On the prescription, on which Frank had to write her grandmother’s doctor, reads: “You may hug your granddaughter.” It was just the move Shaw needed to reclaim a part of her life she loved so much.
“I was trapped in Covid Land, and my doctor gave me the courage to let her in,” Shaw told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “There we were standing in my apartment and just hanging out and crying and crying and crying for the first time in a year, which was an outward experience. It was blissful.”
We talked to some happy grandparents about what it was like when they were reunited with their grandchildren. These are their heartwarming stories.
She will remember it for the rest of her life
Evelyn Shaw touched the last year without a warm embrace or anyone.
The widow lives alone and missed the regular visits of her granddaughter and daughter Laura Shaw Frank.
When the long-awaited hug finally happened on March 1, Shaw and her 23-year-old granddaughter cried as they hugged.
“It was amazing, and it was something I will remember for the rest of my life,” Shaw said. “I want to thank the doctor for writing this prescription.”
Although the hug felt ‘incredible’, Shaw’s granddaughter, Ateret Frank, said she was nervous even though she had both received her vaccine shots.
“With the prescription in my hand, it feels like a letter of permission to be able to embrace my grandmother and when I first do, it feels natural, it feels like a relief and I immediately start crying,” Frank said. .
Returning to things that were once so normal, such as giving a loved one a hug, will take some time to adjust.
“We will all be overcome by the fear we have been living with for so long,” Shaw said.
They got an unexpected hug from behind
While one family in central North Carolina waved eagerly to each other, just like all year, a grandmother made a quick decision when she stood there with her husband. She asked their grandchildren to step back.
“My mother suddenly made an unexpected request,” Deana C. wrote to CNN. “She asked our children to step back one by one so that she could just put her arms around them for a moment and hug them. I was so surprised because we had never been close to each other again in a year. “
Deana looked across the lawn at her 11-year-old son, Eli, who got the hug. All three of her children hugged their grandmother while their grandfather watched on March 7th.
Deana, 47, said her parents are in a risk-age group and that there are members of the family who already exist. They took diligent precautions, she added.
“We have missed so much over the past year, but the sacrifice of distancing ourselves from loved ones pales in comparison to the thought of losing them to Covid-19,” she said.
Although it was hard not to cuddle and be close to her parents, who live only a few villages, Deana said it is the sleep, the family dining and only with their grandparents that her children miss the most.
“The kids are growing so fast, and the grandparents are missing out on their changes and milestones,” she said. “Regular phone calls, even FaceTime, are a bad substitute for the actual presence of loved ones.”
Her parents began to feel safer once they received both doses of the vaccine and enough time had elapsed to build up immunity, she said.
“I was overwhelmed with joy when my child and my mother visited for the first time in over a year,” Deana said. “I wanted to share this moment to let some light shine during a dark time and encourage others to be vigilant.”
They just touched hands through glass
For six months, Lanae Paaverud and her husband would hang out with their three grandchildren by standing outside a glass storm door.
Although the temperature in Shakopee, Minnesota dropped below zero, the grandparents came for their porch visit almost every Sunday. “We bought snow pants and warmer jackets so we could even wear them for 15-20 minutes (outside),” Paaverud wrote.
They looked forward to the tender moments of watching their 13-month-old granddaughter, Clara, look at her Bubu and Yogi.
“Since we could not embrace or hold the grandchildren, we would put our hands (later our gloved hands) with each one on the glass,” Paaverud wrote. “We would make little games out of it, with a look, follow-the-hand, etc. To make her smile and enjoy the interaction.”
This past Sunday, the grandparents doubled their machines and used a disinfectant on their clothes to see their grandchildren. Paaverud’s children had Covid-19 a few months ago and the family thought they had antibodies. Paaverud (55) and her husband are still unable to get their vaccinations.
“We helped with the first four to five months of her (Clara) life. My daughter was worried that she would not remember her grandparents,” Paaverud said. “She recognized our voices and our eyes, even though we were wearing masks.”
Bubu and Yogi had to come face to face with their grandchildren. Their hands touch again as they personally did.
“It was a beautiful moment,” Paaverud wrote. I reached out my hands to help her walk (she’s just learning), and instead she started touching my hands with her usual gentle curiosity, looking at the hands she had only been on for the past six months. glass. “
A granddaughter received the best birthday present of all
Sarah Stevens’ grandmother is one of the people in the middle of her life because she raised her. She and her grandmother, Caroline, both live in Phoenix.
“My grandmother has always been one of my biggest fans,” Stevens wrote to CNN. “She helped raise me, and was my rock after my mother (her daughter) passed away a few years ago.”
Stevens said it was hard to see her grandmother one afternoon a week and just see her from afar.
But for her 28th birthday on February 21, Stevens received a precious gift.
Stevens was part of a clinical trial for one of the vaccines in 2020, so she had already been vaccinated. As luck would have it, her grandmother had full immunity on her birthday.
“It was our first time hanging out in her house,” she said. “It was the best gift I could have received knowing I could embrace her safely again.”
Their hug is on the horizon
The Bonta family from Alameda, California, are counting down the days until they have to embrace their grandmother this weekend.
“We are planning a special dinner for my mother / my children’s Lola and her two grandchildren, Iliana and Andres, for this Saturday, the first day my mother is eligible,” Rob Bonta wrote. “I expect there will be some big, long hugs at this dinner!”
According to the state assembly, no one in the family has been embracing his mother for more than a year. He knows his family is not alone in their sacrifice.
“I know that the experience of my family is not isolated, and that it is probably very much shared by many loving grandparents and their grandchildren, who are so looking forward to those special occasions to get together,” he wrote.
The family visited their Lola, a period of love, at a distance outside with masks for holidays and milestones such as Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day, he said.
Grandma Cynthia Bonta (83) brings up the children gifts with a mask to show that she loves and thinks about it.
“When I saw that vaccinated grandparents could interact masklessly and indoors with their grandchildren they had not seen for more than a year, it warmed my heart to think of all the hugs, smiles, laughter and happiness that grandchildren and grandparents will soon have. would experience “together,” he wrote.
The difficult times are still ahead, but hope is at hand.
“And even as we went through the storm, we remained hopeful and optimistic, and now, after persevering, we can step forward from the shadows in the bright light,” Bonta said.