Grace, Ortonville

Storyteller: Angelina Tersigni

Grace lives in Ortonville, MI, and is currently retired. She said that the first heard of Covid was from my mom. She said that her life has not been affected by the pandemic. Although, she did mention that she lost her freedom of movement in the world, and to travel everywhere without having to think of anything about what she wanted to see in the world. As a family, we usually travel every year, and the pandemic has greatly affected this. We had something planned for last year, and we had high hopes of it happening. But the travel restrictions took a great toll on all of us, and we all had to end up staying home for months. She said that she has gained an appreciation of what she has, instead of taking things for granted. She has also gained the knowledge that she actually likes being around people, and before the pandemic, she should that she was a loner, and that she thought she liked to be alone. She has learned that she can’t take anything she has for granted, and that she can not put things off. She also said that she needs to be really grateful for what she has, and do whatever she can now, and not later. When we talk, I can definitely see this being related to when we travel. I know we were actually planning a really fun trip for last year that we were all looking forward to, but obviously our plans were changed. We’ve all talked amongst each other, expressing our disappointment. As a family, we are definitely active in traveling. We love to go places as often as we can, often overseas, which is one of the areas of restrictions that I think has been affected the most, and usually has more intense rules.