Georganne's Story

Georganne and her mother Gloria were featured in a story on NBC Denver 7:
Weighing What to do With Relatives in Senior Care During COVID-19 Spike


For months, families across the country were told the same thing: stay away.

Behind the doors of long-term care facilities, safety protocols meant isolation. No visitors. No touch. No hugs. For many, it was meant to protect life. But for some families, it began to feel like something else was slipping away.

Georganne knows that feeling all too well.

She remembers her mother Gloria as she used to be — smiling in photos, surrounded by family, celebrating birthdays with her sisters. “She’s very happy in these pictures,” Georganne recalls. Those moments, once ordinary, became painfully distant when COVID-19 restrictions took hold.

At 89 years old, Gloria was living in an assisted living facility when the shutdown began. What followed were months of separation — window visits, video calls, and the growing ache of distance. “I can’t hug my mom, I can’t touch my mom,” Georganne says. Eight months went by like that.

And something began to change.

Without regular human contact, without the stimulation of loved ones nearby, Georganne saw what she feared was decline. Not just physically, but cognitively. “I don’t think it’s healthy at all,” she says. “I think there’s a deterioration.”

For Georganne, the breaking point wasn’t just the isolation — it was the thought of how it might end.

“I do not want to be in a situation where I’m allowed into a memory care facility for the last few hours of her life,” she says. The idea of saying goodbye only at the very end, after months of separation, was something she couldn’t accept.

So she made a choice.

In the middle of a major COVID surge, Georganne decided to move her mother out of the facility and into a setting with fewer restrictions. It wasn’t easy. It meant hiring a caregiver. It meant accepting risk. But to her, the alternative felt worse.

“But she’s my mom,” Georganne says. “I want to be with her every second.”

The moment that followed made everything clear.

As Gloria was moved, mother and daughter embraced — finally sharing their first hug in over six months. A simple act, once taken for granted, now carried the weight of everything they had lost and everything they were fighting to reclaim.

“I feel grateful that I still have my mom,” Georganne says. “And I feel fortunate that I’m going to be able to take my mom and care for her and be with her… whatever time she has left.”

For families watching from the outside, her story raises a difficult question: what does it really mean to protect the people we love?

Because safety is more than avoiding illness. It’s presence. It’s touch. It’s connection.

And sometimes, the hardest decision is also the most human one — to bring them closer, no matter the risk.