Seniors are starting to make up for everything they missed out on during pandemic after Covid-19 vaccinations

Yet, with variants of the coronavirus circulating and 55,000 new infections reported daily, the CDC continues to recommend precautions elsewhere, such as wearing masks, staying physically distant in public, and refraining from air travel.

How older people who have been fully vaccinated – a privileged group, of course, given the millions of older people who have yet to receive vaccines – balance the desire to get rid of isolation and the need to stay safe. security in a pandemic that is not yet over? I interviewed several people I spoke with previously about their plans and thoughts on the difficult year we have been through.

Mardell Reed, 80, from Pasadena, Calif., Told me that she was not sure whether she would receive the vaccine originally, because “I was concerned that the process is going so fast and the companies pharmaceuticals may be producing something that was not up to par. ” But she changed her mind “once we all started hearing from real scientists rather than politicians.”

Now, Reed is trying to educate the people she knows who are still reluctant to get the shot. One of them is his 83-year-old half-sister. “No one had explained anything to him about vaccines,” Reed told me. “I talked about all the things that would be possible – seeing her daughter, who lives up north, seeing more of her grandchildren, and I think that convinced her.”

Reed used to walk around her neighborhood regularly before the pandemic, but she stopped when she was afraid to be with other people. Renewing this habit is a goal.

Some of Reed’s other priorities in the coming months include visiting his daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and seeing his primary care physician, a dentist, a neurologist who treats nerve damage, and an ophthalmologist. . “I didn’t want to go to places where people might be sick last year; now it’s time for me to make up for it all,” she said.

Harry Hutson, 73-year-old and his wife, Mikey, 70, invited two couples to their Baltimore home on separate nights after receiving their second Moderna photos in February and waiting two weeks. “We’re going to have safe dinners right away with people who have been vaccinated,” Hutson told me.

However, he feels a touch of lingering uncertainty. “While we’re 95% sure it’s the right thing to do, we’re a little hesitant. For a year we had ‘Covid is Death’ ingrained in us. After that, you can’t just go back to normal, just like that, ”he says.

Hutson continued to work as an executive coach during the pandemic and recently lectured on Hope to business groups, nonprofits and churches. “What I tell people is ‘You will help yourself by helping others.’ We all come out of trauma and healing should be a collective effort, not an individual one. “

On a personal note, Hutson walks through an attic filled with yearbooks, letters and photos, “keeping my family history.” He hopes to take a road trip across the country with his wife later this year to visit his son’s family in Madison, Wisconsin, his daughter’s family in Portland, Oregon, and his brother in Eugene, Oregon, as well as several friends.

Marian Hollingsworth, 67-year-old from La Mesa, Calif., Spent the last spring and summer confined at home with her husband, Ed, 72, who had stomach cancer, focused on protecting Ed against the coronavirus. But his illness progressed, and in early October Ed died at home, where the couple’s four grown children had gathered to say goodbye.

Since then, Hollingsworth’s son Morgan, 27, who lives in New York City, has stayed with his mother, keeping her company. But grief hit hard: Hollingsworth lost weight and couldn’t sleep at night despite severe fatigue. “It was like getting hit by the biggest Mack truck you could find,” she told me.

The resurgence of the pandemic in the fall and winter made adjusting to the loss of Ed “even more difficult,” Hollingworth said, as she couldn’t get together with friends or be cuddled – a form of contact she wanted. To this day, her clothes are hanging in the closet because the places she would like to send them do not accept donations.

When Hollingsworth was fully vaccinated in early March, she said, she felt for the first time “my head was rising above the water”. Although she doesn’t yet know how much she wants to go out and see people, she is eager to do simple pleasures: petting the neighbor’s dog and going for “distance walks” with a few friends. “I’m going to be careful until there’s more clarity on what’s really safe,” she told me.

Wilma Jenkins, 82, who lives in South Fulton, Ga., Has struggled with depression for years – a challenge she has spoken of publicly in discussions with older people. This fall and winter, isolated at home, “it’s been hard for me – it’s been so sad,” she admitted.

Even though Jenkins describes herself as an “introvert,” she made sure to have regular social contact before the pandemic. Most of the time, she would go out for lunch at local restaurants, chatting with the waiters and other regular customers.

One of Jenkins’ great loves is music – blues and jazz. A few days after our conversation, she was planning to return to her favorite nightclub, St. James Live in Atlanta, to see a show – her first such outing since being fully vaccinated in mid-February.

“I’m not afraid to go back to the world, but I will continue to be masked and socially estranged and wash my hands,” she told me.

Jenkins plans to start walking outside again; go to a restaurant, as long as there are not too many people; and resume visits with his two daughters, both doctors, who live in Atlanta and Washington, DC His most ambitious goal: to fly to San Diego at the end of July for a celebration marking the retirement of his grandson Jamal from the Marine.

Barry smoke is haunted by an image that comes up often over the past year: he is on a moving sidewalk, unable to get off, rushes to a destination he does not want to reach: old age. The picture is associated with the pandemic and knee pain that has worsened, painfully, over the past six months, making it harder to walk.

This past year has been a time of adaptation for Dym, who retired four years ago from his work as a consultant with non-profit organizations. “One of the lessons from Covid for me was that I still needed to feel useful and I love helping people. I realized that maybe I had stepped back too far.

Thus, Dym has expanded his coaching and mentoring practice – an activity he plans to continue. “Anything I can do to help make this world a better place, I’m not going to stop trying,” he said.

Outside of plans to travel with his wife, Franny – to the Florida Keys this spring, the Berkshires in western Massachusetts in the summer, and possibly Israel in the fall – Dym said he was ” more curious than anything “of what awaits us. . “I really don’t know what my life will be like. I’ll have to find out.”