How to survive physical separation
The pandemic has forced us to physically separate from each other. But these Canadians are still finding creative ways to connect.
When you're forced to be apart, how do you stay connected?
In many ways, we're in the middle of the world's biggest social experiment - figuring out how to stay connected, while keeping physically apart.
But is there a silver lining in all this separation? Could it actually deepen our relationships, and make the heart grow fonder?
On this episode of Now or Never, you'll meet Canadians finding creative ways to stay connected, despite the challenges of being apart.
- Whenever Coleen Delauriers wants to see her 92-year-old mother Val, she packs up her lawn chair, and sets up shop outside the window of her mom's personal care home. We listen in on one of their calls, and find out what's getting them through.
- In their two years of marriage, Govinder Singh Gill and Manit Kaur Gill have lived on opposite sides of the Canada-US border. Now they have a three-month old baby. And with border closures and delays in green card applications, the family doesn't know when they'll be together. But for now, they're dealing with a new kind of separation. Govinder is currently quarantined on the second floor of his wife's home in Edmonton, counting down the moments until he can hold his daughter once again.
- Ify gets some advice on planning virtual family dinners - from her four-year-old niece.
- After they divorced, Aly Gampel and Shawn Saraga were barely on speaking terms. How co-parenting through COVID has brought them closer together.
- Julie Epp and Claude Hashakimana live a world apart - she's in Canada, and he lives in Rwanda. And although Julie was never able to formally adopt Claude, they consider themselves mother and son. And now that Claude is about to have a baby, this soon-to-be 'grandmother' is dealing with the reality that comes with having this much distance between them.
- An estimated 1.4 million elderly Canadians experience loneliness. But a group of senior citizens in Winnipeg have discovered a low-fi way to stay connected: three times a day, five days a week, they hop on a giant conference call to chat, play Bingo...even host talent competitions. We'll hear about the life-saving friendships that have been formed, even though they've never met face-to-face.