The prescription, which Frank had her grandmother’s doctor write, was, “You can hug your granddaughter.” It was just the nudge Shaw needed to reclaim a part of her life that she loved so much.
“I was stuck in Covid country and having this prescription from my doctor gave me the courage to let her in,” Shaw told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “There we were, in my apartment for the first time in a year, just cuddling and cuddling and crying and crying, which was an out-of-body experience. It was blissful.”
We spoke to some lucky grandparents about what it was like when they were reunited with their grandchildren. These are their heartwarming stories.
She will remember this for the rest of her life
Evelyn Shaw spent the past year without a warm hug or touching anyone.
The widow lives on her own and missed the frequent 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 each other.
“It was great, and it was something I’ll 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’d gotten both of her vaccinations.
“With that recipe in my hand, it felt like a letter of consent to be able to hug my grandmother and once I did it, it felt natural, it felt like a relief and I immediately started crying,” said Frank.
Getting back to things that were once so normal, like giving a hug to a loved one, will take some time to get used to.
“We’re all going to have to transition from the fear we’ve been living with for so long,” Shaw said.
They got an unexpected hug from behind
While a family in central North Carolina waved eagerly at each other, just as they have all year, a grandmother made a quick decision as she stood there with her husband. She asked their grandchildren to back up to her.
“My mother suddenly made an unexpected request,” Deana C. wrote to CNN. “She asked our kids to back up to them, one by one, so she could put her arms around them for a moment and hug them. I was so surprised because we’ve never been close to each other. years. “
Looking across the lawn to her 11-year-old son, Eli, get the hug brought her joy, Deana said. All three of her children were allowed to hug their grandmother while their grandfather watched on March 7.
Deana, 47, said her parents are in a high-risk age group and there are members of the family who have pre-existing conditions. They have been diligently taking precautions, she added.
“We’ve missed so much over the past year, but the sacrifice of distancing ourselves from our loved ones pales in comparison to the thought of losing them to Covid-19,” she said.
While it was difficult not to cuddle and be close to her parents, who live just a few cities away, Deana said her children miss the sleepovers, family dinners, and getting together with their grandparents the most.
“The kids are growing so fast, and the grandparents are missing out on changes and milestones,” she said. “Frequent phone calls, even FaceTime, are a bad substitute for the actual presence of loved ones.”
Her parents began to feel more secure after receiving both doses of the vaccine and enough time to build up immunity, she said.
“I was overwhelmed with joy when I saw my child and my mother cuddle for the first time in over a year,” said Deana. “I wanted to share this moment to shed a little light in a dark time and encourage others to remain vigilant.”
They only touched their hands through glass
For six months, Lanae Paaverud and her husband would visit their three grandchildren by standing in front of a glass storm door.
Even when temperatures in Shakopee, Minnesota, dropped below zero, the grandparents came for their porch visits almost every Sunday. “We bought snow pants and warmer jackets so that we could endure even 15-20 minutes (outside),” wrote Paaverud.
They looked forward to the tender moments when they saw their 13-month-old grandchild, Clara, looking at her Bubu and Yogi.
“Because we couldn’t hug or hold the grandchildren, we put our hands (later our gloved hands) on each of them on the glass,” wrote Paaverud. “We turned it into little games, with peek-a-boo, hand following, etc. To make her smile and enjoy the interaction.”
Last Sunday, the grandparents wore a double mask and used a disinfectant spray 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 not yet eligible for their vaccinations.
“We helped with the first four to five months of her (Clara’s) life. My daughter was worried she wouldn’t remember her grandparents,” Paaverud said. “She recognized our voices and our eyes, even though we wore masks.”
Bubu and Yogi had to come face to face with their grandchildren. Their hands touched again as they had personally.
“It was a wonderful moment,” wrote Paaverud. “I had reached out to help her walk (she’s just learning), and instead she started to touch my hands with her usual gentle curiosity and look at the hands that she had only been on it for the past six months. glass. “
A granddaughter received the best birthday present of all
Sarah Stevens’s grandmother has been one of the people at the center of her life as she helped raise her. She and her grandmother, Caroline, both live in Phoenix.
“My grandmother has always been one of my biggest supporters,” 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 difficult going to see her grandmother from an afternoon a week, but only being able to see her from a distance.
But for her 28th birthday on February 21st, Stevens received an invaluable gift.
Stevens was part of a clinical trial for one of the vaccines in 2020, so she was already vaccinated. As luck would have it, her grandmother had full immunity on her birthday.
“It was our first time in her house together and hugging,” she said. “It was the best gift I could have gotten knowing I could hug her safely again.”
Their hug is on the horizon
The Bonta family of Alameda, California, is counting down the days until they get to hug their grandmother this weekend.
“We are planning a special dinner for my mother’s / children’s Lola and her two grandchildren, Iliana and Andres, for next Saturday, the first day my mother qualifies,” wrote Rob Bonta. “I expect there will be some big, long hugs at this dinner!”
The representative said that no one in the family has hugged his mother for more than a year. He knows that his family is not alone in their sacrifice.
“I know my family’s experience is not isolated, and is likely to be widely 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, an expression of affection, outside from a distance wearing masks for holidays and milestones such as Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day, he said.
Grandmother Cynthia Bonta, 83, presents the children with masked gifts to show that she loves and thinks about them.
“Seeing that vaccinated grandparents can communicate maskless and indoors with their grandchildren whom they haven’t seen for over a year, I was warm to the thought of all the hugs, smiles, laughter and happiness that grandchildren and grandparents would soon experience. together, ‘he wrote.
The troubled times are still with us, but hope is on the horizon.
“And even as we weathered the storm, we remained hopeful and optimistic, and now that we’ve held on, we can step from the shadows into the bright light ahead,” Bonta said.