Print
Melissa Traub hasn’t hugged her 92-year-old mom since March. Like countless others locked out of a family member’s nursing home because of COVID-19, she has spent nearly a year listening helplessly on the phone as her aging mom struggles to comprehend her isolation.
“I have to hear her crying when she’s having an anxiety attack, asking, ‘Why can’t I just come live with you?’” Traub said. “She’s incontinent. She’s in a diaper. I would have to move to a bigger place and hire live-in help.”
But Traub’s mom is now fully vaccinated, as are most of the residents in her Reseda nursing home. Traub has had her first injection, and her second is scheduled in the coming days. So why can’t she go give her mom a hug?