NORTHAMPTON — Ever since her mother, Lorraine Bruno, had a massive stroke five years ago, Laura Sabin has religiously visited her at Linda Manor, a senior health care and housing facility.
“I’ve always gone every day since she’s been in there — unless we’re on vacation or I’m sick,” she said. “It’s my mom.”
But the COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted their visiting routine. In March, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, including Linda Manor, began restricting visits.
Sabin was not surprised. “We knew it was coming,” she said. “It was a source of comfort knowing there wouldn’t be foot traffic coming in and out.”
But it was sad telling her mother, she said. “The tears came.”
Instead of in-person visits, Sabin improvised and started to see her mother through her room window. Every morning and afternoon, she comes to her mother’s first-floor window, which stays closed, and calls her on a landline. A stroke left Bruno paralyzed on one side and largely unable to speak, but that hasn’t stopped them from connecting. When the weather is nice, Sabin’s father, Charles, comes along, too, and Bruno’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren also have visited.
On Monday, Sabin stood in the rain talking with her mother, who sat by the window, her phone to her ear. Sabin smiled and waved through the glass, which had a bird feeder and Easter egg decorations on it. The hood of Sabin’s gray sweatshirt covered her from the rain.
“My mom is a real social person even though she can’t talk,” Sabin said. Continuing the visits, she said, is important. “It gives her that stimulation.”
She has tried to get creative about their interactions. “As soon as this lockdown started, I went out and bought window markers from Lowe’s so we could write messages and pictures and change it up daily,” she said. Bruno’s young great-grandchildren draw pictures on the window.
Sabin doesn’t dwell on the idea of her mother getting COVID-19, but “that’s a thought that always enters my mind,” she said, adding that she thinks Linda Manor has done a good job taking precautionary steps. “Is there a possibility that it will come in? Yes, but we deal with things as they happen.”
Right now, she feels her mother is in good hands. “That staff up there is amazing,” she said. “They have stepped in as family and caregivers.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.