SAN DIEGO — Every day, for more than two years, Francis “France” Doiron drove from his home in Chula Vista, California, to the nearby Birch Patrick Skilled Nursing Facility to visit with his wife, Roberta. He arrived each morning at 6:30 to greet her as she woke up and stayed until 6 p.m., when it was time for bed.
Most days, the couple held hands and listened to their favorite songs. France, 95, visited his 92-year-old wife so frequently that staff sometimes thought he lived there too.
But more than a year ago, the Birch Patrick, operated by Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, locked its doors to visitors to keep residents safe from the spread of the novel coronavirus. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, March 15, 2020, was the last time France was able to hug and kiss his wife, who suffers from dementia.
They’ve spent the past year visiting one another virtually via FaceTime chats. Occasionally, when community spread dipped, they were able to visit outdoors from a distance. But they missed their day-long visits and the touch of each other’s hands.
“That felt real bad in a way,” France said, “but I knew the situation of why I couldn’t come near — it was making the situation much easier that way, so I knew it was best for me not to come, and I’m not the only one.”
Now that the Doirons have both received their COVID-19 vaccinations, they were able to once again hug and hold each other’s hands Tuesday.
“So I’m crying,” Roberta said, as her caregiver wheeled her into the visitation room amid applause from the staff, happy to see her rejoined with the love of her life.
The couple met in Brunswick, Maine, when France returned home to New England after serving in the U.S. Navy during the end of World War II. They married on Thanksgiving Day in 1948, and while France was serving a second stint in the Navy in 1950, the couple moved to the San Diego area before settling in Chula Vista a few years later.
They raised two boys, one who died about two years ago, and France said they proudly share “so many” grandchildren and great grandkids, including a grandson who lives in town.
In addition to a promise to never go to bed angry, one of the many things the couple shared throughout their marriage is a love of music and singing.
“When I wasn’t singing my dad did, and he sang the whole Mass in Latin, but he was always after us to sing,” Roberta said.
During their visit Tuesday, France played a few songs on his phone, hoping to inspire his wife to sing like she used to. She was too shy to sing along at first, but eventually she quietly sang a few lines from “After the Lovin’” by Engelbert Humperdinck, one of her brother’s favorite songs.
France said the long-awaited visit was everything he had been hoping for during this year kept largely apart.
“I know she likes to hold onto me — we hold hands all the time and go walking all the time, and we’d hold hands all the time when we went walking,” France said.
Tuesday’s resumption of indoor visitations at Birch Patrick was a welcome change for Laurie Godfrey, the director of nursing at the facility.
“I had tears in my eyes, I’m just so happy because he would be here all day long, they were always together,” Godfrey said. “I think that’s one of the hardest things over the past year, the separation. Even though we did outdoor visits, we did video visits, but that physical touch, there’s nothing that is more special than that.”
The past year has been filled with worries and stress for Godfrey and other staff as they worked to keep residents safe from the virus, while also attempting to fill in the gaps left behind by the absence of in-person visits.
She also saw signs of depression in residents like Roberta, who with the advanced symptoms of dementia, didn’t always remember why her husband couldn’t visit.
“I would try to explain to her that it was my fault that he couldn’t come in because I wouldn’t let him, and we’d say ‘We know how much he loves you’ and we would set up a video visit real soon so she could see him,” Godfrey said.
Toward the end of their visit, Roberta and France joked with each other about guests needing a library card to visit their home filled with books, and whether the house was currently clean.
“The house is always clean — I keep it clean,” France said.
“And?” Roberta asked.
“I miss my other half that used to help me,” France quipped back.
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