LONDON, ONT. -- Trips to visit grandma just aren’t the same these days, especially for nine-year-old Bridget Miller of Strathroy, Ont. For over a year now, she’s had to give up one of her favourite things.
“Give her a hug,” says Miller, who had been trying to come up with a plan to speed up the process of ‘getting back to normal.’ She thought she had a fool-proof plan.
“I got lots of money from Easter and stuff,” says Miller, who without warning or informing anyone in her family, presented her grandparents with $150 to “help them get the vaccine faster.”
While moved, they had to explain that wasn’t how it worked.
“We were very touched by her generosity” says Roberta Young, “And we explained to her that they were free to us, but we had to wait our turn.”
Young also misses those special times with the grandkids staying over at what is called “Camp Grandma.”
“Those times that you just get to leave your parents behind and come and visit grandma,” says Young, who just learned she can book an appointment for her first dose of the vaccine.
But she also knows it will be awhile before they can get back to ‘normal’ visits.
“We’ve explained to Bridget that it’ll take a few weeks, and then after that the second dose, we’ll still have to maintain a certain distance.”
Right now the goodbye tradition of pointing to their eyes, and then their hearts and then to one another before an air hug will have to do. But Bridget is counting down the days to the end of the pandemic.
“Then I can see everyone again, and I don’t have to wear this stupid mask.”
