Cracking the COVID Touch

A Touch Deficit

On June 22, 2020 the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) shuffled another step forward into Stage Two of re-opening the economy. Lagging behind the rest of Ontario they had struggled to achieve the requisite declines in COVID-19 infection rates. But even with a collective sigh of relief at the easing of social and business restrictions, Stage Two is still a yellow light signal − a cautionary warning to proceed slowly and look both ways. We still cannot touch. 

Yet, how we ache to crack the deficit; to touch without terror of contracting a severe illness or courting death: with arms longing to embrace, with lips eager to kiss a familiar cheek, with hands reaching instinctively to hold another’s in assurance, with fingers meant to stroke in comfort, with bodies yearning the solidity of a loved one anchored in their arms. Never more than now − when we can’t − do we feel how deeply touch touches us. It is primal to our human natures. 

Not Enough

Once the full bloom of the Pandemic reached Ontario in mid-March shuttering the province with no immediate end in sight, the repeated mantra from my ninety-year-old mother became: “When this thing is over, I will give you the biggest hug ever and crack your ribs.”  With a compact extra thirty pounds in my favour − I’m sticking to my story that muscle weighs more than fat − Mum likely wouldn’t do much damage, but I sensed an increasing desperation at our Pandemic separation. 

Even with the company of her live-in adult grandson and our nightly telephone calls, these were not enough to ease her agitation. Mums sense of isolation became increasingly worrisome. It was only as the warmer weather broke, after winter’s icy recession, that I could visit for physical distancing (PD) neighborhood walks.  

But chatting with Mum on the sidewalk while I walked along-side in the road − the physical separation seemed oddly more pronounced when in person. So close, yet so far. Mum wasn’t the only one feeling the lack. How I longed to tuck her arm securely into mine to lend support while we walked, like I always used to do.

A Touch Crazy

How more acute that sense of separation when frantically peering through a thick glass from the outside sidewalk of Trillium Hospital in Mississauga. I couldn’t see where my mother stood in the Emergency Department triage queue. 

Earlier, when arriving at her home for a PD walk, she greeted me in the driveway confused, shaken, and without the recollection of her entire morning. By necessity we broke our PD safety measures.

A call to her family doctor recommending a full hospital work-up to assess her condition precipitated our journey, but it never occurred to me that pandemic protocols wouldn’t allow me to advocate for her when we arrived at the hospital emergency ward. How on earth were they going to treat her when she couldn’t recall a thing from that morning? And she was unsteady on her feet, these days easily confused, and plainly she needed my help.

Standing outside while trying to call through to the triage nurses, I experienced a slight sense of the desperation no doubt felt by hundreds of people physically distanced from a loved one being hospital treated for COVID-19. Such an unnatural and appalling state.

For years, my primary call from God had been to care for my aging mother (for more listen to: https://anchor.fm/masterofyourcrafts/episodes/S1–Ep–3–Stories-That-Bridge-Heart–Heaven-eeaps4). Yet, here I was, separated by a wall of glass and brick, frantic to speak to someone, and going out of my head with worry because of our physical separation. It was my God-given job to care for her, and I couldn’t do it.

Trusting Touch

“Dear Lord,” I prayed. “What am I to do? She needs someone to help her.”

Barely had I completed my plea when a response filtered into my thoughts: “You don’t trust me? You don’t think I can care for your mother.”

That caught me. What was I supposed to say?  I realized this was a response to my prayer. God loved Mum more than I ever could. I was being challenged to trust God, and by inference, to trust others in the hospital to tend and care for Mum. We knew that look. This was not our first visit. Hospital processes were not pretty. But God was asking me to step back from a long-held calling. I was being asked to trust others to touch my mother with care.  

I didn’t like it.

“Lord,” I responded in my head, “I don’t like what’s going on and that I can’t be there with Mum.”

Then I sucked in a big breath before continuing. 

“But I trust you. It’s likely they will want to run a bunch of tests. Please have the hospital staff take care of her at every stage.”

The Father’s Touch

In a world where Father God isn’t visibly present Jesus stands in. God trusts Jesus to touch humanity with hands of care. When he walked the earth, Jesus shared our physicality. Jesus shared all that is common to humankind. Physical touch was an enormous part of what he did, especially when ministering to and healing people. That is why God made himself manifest in a human named Jesus, and why his Spirit is in the world, to be touchable, reachable, real and relatable. 

The attention Mum received at Trillium affirmed my trust in God’s touch, supported at every stage, passed from one set of caring hands to another, she was okay. It was as if Jesus had walked the hospital halls in the shoes of the medical staff, each care giver lending her the support of a firm arm when I could not.

The hospital administration called at six-thirty that evening, saying she was ready for pickup. The test results were good − the emergency doctor couldn’t say what caused her episode of confusion and memory loss, but it wasn’t a stroke. There was no evidence of damage.

“Thank you, Lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

On the drive home with the pressure valve of worry uncapped, I chatted like a school girl beginning summer break, unbridled joy spewed at the sudden freedom. And when we got to Mum’s place, I let her crack my ribs.