Item
Out of Touch
Title (Dublin Core)
Out of Touch
Disclaimer (Dublin Core)
DISCLAIMER: This item may have been submitted in response to a school assignment prompt. See Linked Data.
Description (Dublin Core)
When I spent the Thanksgiving 2019 holiday with my family at my grandparent’s house, I had no idea that my hug goodbye would be the last hug I could share with my grandmother for a very long while. With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC pushed multiple changes to prevent the spread of the virus which included social distancing. Both my grandparents are at high risk with underlying health conditions, so possible exposure to the virus was not an option for them. For us, social distancing also meant family distancing. Thankfully, I was able to have regular meetings with them on their front porch. We kept one of the front doors closed to separate us, and we talked from a safe distance. It was not the same as what I was used to and I missed the closeness that we once had, but they were moments to cherish as I did not know when I would get to hug them again. Sadly, I was not the only individual forced to find new ways to stay in touch with family members. All over the internet, heartbreaking pictures and videos surfaced showing families separated by hospital windows, mothers giving birth without family in the delivery room to support them and hold their new baby, and people ‘touching’ their loved one’s hands through glass barriers. These moments showed how the coronavirus left many families out of touch.
Once the virus started to slow down and vaccines became accessible, I was finally able to spend more time with my grandparents without the physical barrier. Lots of people are talking about a ‘new normal’ now that cities are reopening and people are getting to go back to their lives. For me, getting to hug my grandmother again was a sign that everything would be okay, and life finally felt normal.
Once the virus started to slow down and vaccines became accessible, I was finally able to spend more time with my grandparents without the physical barrier. Lots of people are talking about a ‘new normal’ now that cities are reopening and people are getting to go back to their lives. For me, getting to hug my grandmother again was a sign that everything would be okay, and life finally felt normal.
Date (Dublin Core)
July 27, 2021
Creator (Dublin Core)
Mekenna Miller
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Mekenna Miller
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
HST643
Partner (Dublin Core)
Arizona State University
Type (Dublin Core)
text story
photo
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Emotion
English
Social Distance
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
grandmother
Thanksgiving
holiday
hug
social distancing
immunocompromised
connection
visit
grandparent
grandfather
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
sensory history
family
pandemic
Collection (Dublin Core)
Holidays
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
06/27/2021
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
06/29/2021
07/21/2021
06/27/2023
Item sets
This item was submitted on June 27, 2021 by Mekenna Miller using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: http://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.