This is the first in a series of stories by AL.com to reflect on the 1-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching Alabama. Each day leading up to March 13 we will elevate the voices of those impacted.
When Valerie Nelan’s daughter caught COVID in January, it started a chain reaction that almost caused her boss – the CEO of a major law firm – to miss a big company meeting in Memphis.
“The fallout from us getting COVID was remarkable,” Nelan said.
The family had to quarantine for two weeks. Her son’s 3rd grade class shifted to virtual learning and exposure rules ended her daughter’s dance team season. In the end, the CEO quarantined for 10 days, tested negative and made it to the company meeting.
“The fallout and the trajectory of it was very eye-opening and I was so thankful that, to our knowledge, we did not infect anyone else,” Nelan said.
Meanwhile, the family had to hunker down, first separately when Nelan and her daughter got sick, and then together when the boys tested positive. The isolation from quarantining was more difficult than expected, and because the family had mild symptoms, it almost came as a relief when they could suffer through them together.
“You don’t want to get COVID, obviously,” Nelan said. “No one wants it because it’s like rolling the dice. You don’t know how mild or how not mild it’s going to be. You have no idea. But we all ended up having relatively mild symptoms in the grand scheme of things. If you’re going to get it, it’s nice for the whole family to have it at once because you don’t have to quarantine from each other.”
Moms and families suffered through a lot of uncertainty during the roller coaster of a year. Worry about the virus morphed into stress from e-learning after school buildings shut down in the spring. Women were more likely than men to drop out of the work force to handle educational and other family responsibilities as the summer began and camps canceled. Childcare was often an issue.
Most Alabama schools reopened in the fall, but not all children returned to in-person classes. Parents had to weigh work responsibilities with concerns about potential exposure. For many families, it was a year unlike any other, full of missed milestones and a lot of togetherness.
Kadine Christie was prepared for the shift to schooling at home. She already homeschooled her three children, so they didn’t miss a beat when schools closed down. Still, the combination of pandemic stress and the racial tension following the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery weighed on her.
“The nervous quaking in my chest intensified and prolonged for weeks,” Christie said. “I went to the emergency room twice in one month and was diagnosed with a panic attack.”
Women also found themselves with new or expanded families due to COVID. Francesca McCall, a 40-year-old single working mother of seven children in Birmingham suddenly saw her family expand to 12 after her sister and brother-in-law died in September and October of COVID.
Haley Kirby found joy in her new baby. She was seven months pregnant during the shutdown, which ended her job. The pandemic threw a wrench into her career and birth plans, but she managed to roll with the punches. Even though her year didn’t match her expectations, it still proved magical.
“I’m overjoyed,” Kirby said. “I have a baby, I have a new career, I have a whole new subset of friendships that I think have developed more deeply than a normal friendship would because of the state that we live in. … And then at the same time I’m filled with immense sadness because I have a new baby and a new subset of friends that can’t interact, or meet one another, or family that can’t meet my new family.”
Jill Chamness also became a new mom during the pandemic. And she experienced the stress of school re-openings from the other side as a teacher’s aide in Huntsville. As she entered her final trimester, she went back to teaching in-person.
“I went from not being around many people to about to throw myself into a public school system,” Chamness said. “We really didn’t know what to expect about anything. I guess the unknown made me feel anxious. Are we having sick kids coming into our building?”
All the moms said they believed some of the changes from the pandemic might stick around for a while. Working from home might become the norm for some occupations. However, some of them have worked in-person during the pandemic.
Nelan has been at the office. But she said working from home would probably become more common for many of her colleagues. Physical contact in the workplace, like handshakes, might never return, she said.
“I don’t think we will ever go back to the level of seeing people work inside the office or inside whatever job they are unless that job requires them to be on site,” Nelan said.
Other parts of normal life may return more quickly, Christie said.
“I believe we will go bare-faced again,” Christie said. “I believe that instead of the hesitant two steps we’ve developed during the pandemic, we will open our arms and run towards each other. We will embrace. We will celebrate together. We will open our mouths and laugh out loud again.”
You can read the stories of these and other stories about mothers impacted by the pandemic in the posts below:
Writer, business manager Valerie Nelan: COVID led to fear, caution and acceptance
Kadine Christie: ‘We will open our mouths and laugh out loud again’
Denise Onwere: ‘Some things you need to be there’
Ellen Lathrop on becoming a pandemic parent
New mom Jill Chamness: ‘We kind of lived our best life’ during COVID
Trainer, new mother Haley Kirby on COVID: I’m overjoyed, yet filled with sadness
Nurse Holly Franklin: ‘It’s kind of like apocalyptic’
To see all the stories of Alabamians impacted by COVID, go here.