Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times Published: 07 May 2021 05:16 PM BdST Updated: 07 May 2021 05:16 PM BdST Dan Fabrizio, right, cries as he hugs his mother Marie Fabrizio for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, at Reformed Church Home in Old Bridge, NJ, on Monday, Mar 29, 2021. Bryan Anselm/The New York Times Anita P Franco, 82, left, holds hands with her son Victor Garcia in her room at Focused Care at Fort Stockton, a long-term care nursing community in Fort Stockton, Texas, on April 5, 2021. She had not seen him in person since before the coronavirus pandemic began last year. Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/us/coronavirus-nursing-home-reunion.html
Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
They saw each other and wept.
They held hands and didnât let go.Â
How to begin to say âI love youâ after a year?
âJoy, Love, Griefâ: How It Looks When Families Reunite
The pandemic kept nursing home residents and their loved ones apart for a year. Photographers for The New York Times were there when they finally reunited.
A daughter holding her motherâs hand. A son overcome that his 95-year-old mother survived the pandemic. A stoic family patriarch, suddenly in tears.
After a year of excruciating lockdowns, these were the scenes at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities as they began to open up this spring. Before the arrival of vaccines, one in three coronavirus deaths in the United States had ties to nursing homes and similar facilities.