He texts you a picture. In it, Sarah Cornelius’ arms, sheathed in plastic, are clutched tight to Earl, as if they’re dancing, slowly, in the wind. Her head is resting snugly on her son’s chest.
“Expand it,” Earl Cornelius says.
“If you can expand it to see my mother’s face, that will give you a little bit of an idea. That will spur an emotion. And give you a little bit of a feeling how truly important contact is, I think.”
Your fingers swipe to the eyes. They’re closed. It’s a love hug. A mother’s hug. The best hug. The kind you miss. The kind you never want to end. Sarah was moved to a memory-care facility last year. Earl’s her only child. Sad and sweet, Earl’s friend called it.
“And that’s true, right?” Earl says of their first embrace in months.
“It’s sad that you’re standing next to her with 15 people around in a wind storm with our arms wrapped in plastic and arms wrapped around your mother. And that it’s come to that. But the moment itself was very sweet.”
It’s funny what you miss in a global pandemic. Handshakes. High-fives. If you’re exhausted from being lonely, from being cooped up, you’re not alone.
A year after COVID-19 first hit Colorado, we’ve grown used to being apart. Mostly. A little isolation is cleansing for the soul. What happens after months of it?
With vaccinations ramping up, we can make out a speck of light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. But what were the long-term impacts, emotionally and psychologically, of all that time in the murk? How did we change? What did we lose? And how do we get it back?
“I used to complain about my friends being ‘huggy,’ ” says Dr. Apryl Alexander, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Denver. “Now I miss those hugs.
“People are learning the importance of touch and the importance of conversation. When we talk about basic needs, one of our basic needs is each other. And being social. And being connected.”
Earl and Sarah’s re-connection came on Feb. 3, at Juniper Village in Louisville. Mother and son held each other through something called a Hug Tent, a plastic covering set up to allow residents at Juniper, a memory-care community, to have physical contact with loved ones without making actual physical contact.
Sarah is 84, battling dementia. There’s a bond of decades there, a duty of care.
“It’s been brutal on us,” Earl says. “Which is one of the reasons why that scene was very emotional for me. I could tell, just the way she was grabbing a hold of me, how much comfort she was getting from that contact … So yeah, it’s been emotional. It’s been hard on everybody.”
We coped. We tried. Some ways were better than others. Some days, too. When you’re trying to navigate the darkness, not everyone finds the same path to sunshine.
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For Katie Kruger, a widowed mother of two in Congress Park, 2020’s hits landed on multiple fronts. Her boyfriend John died of a rare cancer this past August, just eight months after he was first diagnosed. Daughter Laurel came home for a “gap” year rather than spend another semester at Smith (Mass.) College on lockdown.
Because Kruger’s work at King Soopers had her regularly engaging with the public during the pandemic, she feared that exposing John to COVID could exacerbate his descent.
Once quarantines became routine, what had been an intimate, intra-city relationship — her boyfriend had became like a stepfather to her autistic son, Charlie, 17, teaching him the joys of bike-riding, basketball and bowling — became more like a long-distance one.
“I used to be an accountant; I’ve always considered myself an introvert,” Kruger says. “But I think this pandemic has changed that. I cannot stand being alone with my thoughts. I definitely need to be with people. It’s made me appreciate the struggles that people go through.
“As much as we’ve been through (as a family), the customers, with some of the things they tell me, I know they’re struggling in their own ways. I just think we all have learned to listen to each other, and recognize that we all have crosses to bear.”
We all have stories. One of Katie’s favorites was the time she came home from work recently to find Charlie pondering in the hall near the doorway. As she took off her shoes, her son approached with a curious look.
“Mom,” Charlie wondered, “what did you dream last night?”
“I don’t know, Charlie,” she said. “What did you dream?”
“I dreamed that John was still alive,” Charlie replied. He smiled. “I was on Cloud Nine.”
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For Celina Martinez of Westminster, isolation is relative. She’s an empty-nester at 56 and a cancer survivor, diagnosed with leukemia some 17 years ago.
“My doctor said, ‘How can I bottle your happiness?’” Martinez laughs. “I said, ‘I don’t know. There’s no secret.’
“I will say this: There are days I wake up where I’m sad and I said, ‘OK, you’re either going to do something for somebody or something for yourself. You pick.’”
Even contradictions can be embraced. Martinez describes herself as a people person who’s learned to enjoy the quiet. And the routine of working all but one day a week at home. And the pleasures of a shorter occasional commute to the offices of Sturgeon Electric Company, where she’s been employed for the last two-and-a-half years.
“When we first stayed home (last spring), I cleaned like a crazy person. I used a lot of Clorox, because I was very worried about germs,” Martinez says. “Now, I basically take good care of myself. If I feel that I need to rest, I rest. If I feel the need to go for a walk, I go for a walk.
“I think sometimes, we need to just baby our bodies a little bit, whether it’s a warm bath with Epsom salt or lotions, whatever it is that makes you happy. And makes you feel a little bit cherished.”
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For those who have had to reckon with loss over the past 11 months, the light at the end of the COVID tunnel means living without something, or someone, that helped make each of those days brighter.
Josh was Amber Schroetlin’s wind and wings. The Woodland Park mom describes her family’s year as “surreal … like a time warp.”
Cancer sent Josh Schroetlin into hospice care around Valentine’s Day 2020. On St. Patrick’s Day, it took his life.
Amber says the family couldn’t hold a proper memorial service for her late husband until May 2020. They eventually got a permit for a private ceremony at Great Sand Dunes National Park, scattering Josh’s ashes along one of the family’s favorite vacation stops.
“Hugs and just normal human touch have been big things that are missing for us,” Schroetlin says. “It was hard. Our church re-opened and we went back (after Josh’s passing) and no one hugged us. Because they couldn’t. Or they weren’t supposed to.”
Amber fears for her children, aged 16, 15 and 12, who, because of being physically apart from their peers, have had to internalize so much of their pain.
Imagine wanting more than anything else in the world to have a shoulder to cry on, no questions asked. And then being denied those shoulders for months on end.
“I started meeting online with a grief group. But I just met, in person, with one of the people from my group,” Schrotelin says. “And it was amazing. We both just felt so connected when we met and we had so many things in common …
“I just feel like we’re waiting. We’re waiting to even start grieving the way we want to or the way we need to. Because there are so many parts of grieving that you’re expected to do and so many steps that you’re supposed to go through that are expected in our society. And we haven’t done a lot of those.”
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For others, time apart — professional and personal — provided an opportunity. Janet Jonker of Lowry is a retired teacher, an educator for roughly four decades in Southern California who moved here to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren.
Last spring, daughter Annelies hit upon a brainstorm to try and turn a potential economic and logistical hardship into a lesson. The family wouldn’t use the services of their longtime housekeeper because of COVID concerns, but they would continue to pay her.
In the meantime, Janet’s grandkids were given a list of daily chores, from cleaning to cooking. They were taught to be self-sufficient. It even got a little competitive, but in a healthy way.
“The kids are now cooking full meals several times a week and taking turns trying to learn new recipes and outdo each other,” Jonker says. “You can take lemons and turn them into lemonade, if you have the right attitude.”
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But you can’t rush the heart. Especially when that healing has to be done alone.
“Loneliness does so much to your soul,” notes Jennifer Lisiecki, who last year with her husband Kane launched the Facebook group Help Needed in Denver Metro COVID-19, an outlet that’s helped provide services, goods and support for those impacted locally by the pandemic.
“So much sadness, when you have nothing to look forward to, can just wear on you.”
By the end of March 2020, the Lisieckis’ Help Needed group had roughly 2,500 members. That count is now up to around 13,500.
“I think it’s brought people closer together but further apart,” Kane says. “I know that term’s been said over and over. Even picking up the phone and calling people, using social media, I think everybody’s dying to get out there and have a beer and go for a hike.”
The Colorado Department of Health’s state crisis line received an average of 16,782 calls per month over a span from September 2019 through April 2020. That average ballooned to 23,227 per month from May through December of last year.
“And I think that’s one of the reasons that people are struggling, is not being able to connect with the things we appreciate about Denver,” Alexander says.
“And that’s why some people are breaking the rules a little bit. I think people are getting tired of being inside all the time, not have all the connections, thinking, ‘Let me have this one piece of celebration that brings me a bit normalcy. Let’s go to this Super Bowl party and celebrate afterward.’”
Even if you don’t feel it, offers Dr. Robert Werthwein, director of Colorado’s Behavioral Health Office, that’s fine. Fake it. Fake it ‘til you make it.
Because we will. Eventually.
“Taking care of yourself is key,” Werthwein says. “And I say it’s key because it’s really easy to fall into (habits), especially if you’re not going anywhere and you fall into your routine of ending up sometimes showering or sometimes dressing, and ‘I’m not going anywhere, why should I put the effort in?’ It’s good to get into a routine. Even if you’re in the house and are working from home, it’s good to be getting outside and getting some fresh air, whether it’s cold or warm.
“Part of (adapting) is taking care of yourself — so you have the energy and motivation to connect with others.”
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It’s funny what you miss in a global pandemic. Hugs, perhaps, most of all.
“I wish we could’ve had a full day of it,” says Colean Farrar, executive director at Juniper Village. “Because truly — somebody with dementia, you never know when their journey is going to end. It could take a long time. It could be sudden. So that’s probably the hardest for all the families.”
The Feb. 3 setup, held in high winds and chilly temps, was the facility’s first. But she doesn’t expect it’ll be the last.
“I’ve been in health care for more than 35 years. This (pandemic) is the worst thing that I’ve ever been through,” Farrar says. “When HIV was making its presence known, we didn’t have this (degree of separation), where families couldn’t visit and this type of thing.”
Farrar feels their pain. Since the pandemic started, her husband moved to the basement of their home, while she stayed on the main floor.
“My risk is high because of (my being in) health care, so we’re trying to take that precaution,” Farrar says. “But we still try really hard to communicate, every day.”
The isolation strategy turned out to be prescient. Farrar contracted the virus this past December, a spell that kept her away from work for two weeks.
“Because we were self-isolating, he never got it, so he was my care-giver,” she explains. “He would make sure food was ready and that kind of thing. And then he’d go back down to the basement, then send me a text message.”
YOUR LUNCH IS READY
Romantic, it wasn’t.
“We’ve had to adjust,” Farrar says. “But (we’re) just trying to make sure that we’re having communication that’s meaningful. Not just, ‘How was your day,’ that kind of thing. We have to have a good conversation.”
We have to reach out. We have to feel. Caress. Even if it’s through inches of plastic sheeting.
“The whole deal’s been hard on everybody in the country,” Cornelius says. “And senior facilities, health-care facilities, got off to such a (rocky) start. So I don’t blame them. They really had no choice but to panic and lock down.”
As for the hug?
It felt sad, Earl says.
Sad and sweet.
“My initial thought was, ‘Why bother?’” Earl sighs. “But because of the way they had the thing set up, with my arms in and her arms out, so she could get her arms around my waist, you could feel the embrace.
“I would say it was better than I thought it was going to be.”
