A hug is just what the doctor ordered.
A woman who received her second coronavirus vaccination got an official prescription from her doctor to hug her granddaughter — both say the emotional embrace was long overdue.
“She wrote you are allowed to hug your granddaughter,” Evelyn Shaw said after a long year of COVID-19 precautions.
The moment she finally got to see hold her grandaughter tight was caught on video that is now capturing the hearts of many on Twitter.
“It was a very magical moment, it was a surreal moment, it was a moment of sheer bliss,” Shaw said. “It was my first hug, my very first hug in one year.”
Like many older adults, she recently received her second dose of the vaccine and then Shaw waited two weeks for her immunity to fully kick in.
“I have had two vaccines plus two weeks after that and I wrote on my calendar that day free at last,” she said.
But, after all that time, she still did not feel free. So, when her daughter and granddaughter showed up on her doorstep recently, she was still hesitant to get too close.
“This fear of will COVID get to me? How do I know I’m safe? All of those things” is what Shaw said was holding her back.
The two later came back to her with a special gift. Enclosed in an envelope sat a doctor’s note.
Shaw’s granddaughter knew she was having a hard time adjusting and asked the doctor for the note to ease her mind.
“And somehow having this prescription in my hand gave me the courage to let her into my house and there we were hugging and hugging and crying,” Shaw said.
Though the year has been hard, Shaw said remembering how those hugs felt made taking precautions worthwhile.
The video posted on social media has garnered more than 200,000 views so far.
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