Since my husband Jesse and I often travel to visit and meet with family and friends, this has generally not been possible since mid-March.

So I am pleased to say that I have made an effort, as have many family members and friends, to connect virtually, by more phone calls and group FaceTime and Zoom arrangements. Starting With Passover, we “attended” two zoom seders, from each sides of our family. We have been to zoom birthday gatherings of my brother and a friend. Sometimes we have connected with people during these zoom parties that we would not have seen at all anyway, which has been surprisingly pleasurable.

With our daughter, husband and grandson living internationally, we are used to connecting with them by FaceTime on a weekly basis anyway. However, without being able to plan to see them in person, our daughter has been extra conscientious about her FaceTime calls to us. Before COVID we had been very fortunate to be together with them, whether somewhere in the US or Fiji where they live, every few months or so. Not being together or even able to plan for a future visit has been the most difficult scenario for me during the pandemic.

I have a group of women cousins with whom I am close and we have been traveling together in recent years. Now we are “meeting” by FaceTime every 2-3 weeks or so.

We have friends who have organized other zoom arrangements, book clubs and a reunion of my high school friends. On a regular basis, with busy lives, this may not have been so easy to do as it is now with more at-home time. And many are friends that I would not have seen in person often anyway.

So with the time to gather virtually, I feel like I have kept up with many distant family and friends.

As mentioned, my main regret is the loss of togetherness with our daughter and family. Despite having been fairly closely connected to our 4 year-old grandson, I fear that eventually, without new in-person connections and memories, he may just come to see us as those annoying old people on his mother’s phone who are interrupting his other activities.