As someone who visits my grandparents weekly, the COVID-19 situation has greatly reduced the amount of time I can spend with them. What used to be visits about twice a week turned into visits once every two or so weeks. In Singapore, there have been restrictions put on the number of visitors allowed per household. Because of this, my family had to implement a system in which we all alternate, taking turns to visit our grandparents. In addition, we were advised to cut down our frequency of visits to help ensure the safety of our grandparents, as they were more susceptible to this virus. My grandparents sometimes went weeks without any external visits, everyone was very worried for them. Firstly, my grandparents lived on their own. This posed a source of worry as there was no one who could aid them throughout their day, in case of emergencies, this was very dangerous. Secondly, they lacked social interaction. My relatives and I all feared that my grandparents would start to feel lonely due to being isolated from the rest of their family.
To pull through these tough times, we decided to find new ways to spend time with our grandparents. We took to holding zoom calls to catch up with our grandparents, and even found some online games that could be played from the comfort of one's home. Originally, my grandparents had difficulties learning how to use their computers and other devices, however, through our occasional visits, we slowly took the time to explain how to use their devices. Eventually, my grandparents became very well versed with the functions of their devices and learnt how to send texts to us, even occasionally sharing funny pictures that they stumbled across while browsing the internet.
All in all, the pandemic may have brought a lot of inconvenience and loss in our lives, however, it has also taught us many essential things and allowed us to be creative to find new ways to adapt to the ever changing situation.