The joy and shock of face-to-face human contact
Image of the Week: Thanks to vaccination, a Seattle family’s long and painful separation ends in an eye-popping moment of delight
Yoshia Uomoto, 98, reacts as her son Mark Uomoto and niece Gail Yamada surprise her with their first in-person visit in a year in Seattle. Residents, who have all been fully vaccinated, can visit with family for an hour at a time. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)
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At 98, Yoshia Uomoto can’t hear very well. That made it tricky to communicate with her family whenever they visited her, separated as they were by a window pane at her assisted living facility in Seattle. But after Mark Uomoto, Yoshia’ 68-year-old son, and his cousin, Gail Yamada, got vaccinated, they wanted to surprise the Uomoto matriarch with an in-person visit. Fortunately, a Reuters photographer was there to capture the moment. “It was so wonderful to hear, see her expression of excitement that she had,” Mark told the Today Show. He caught her up on the last year in their lives, changes at her church and his own retirement. Their get-together comes as authorities in Canadian provinces ease their own restrictions on visits to long-term care residents, offering the prospect of countless more moments like this one in Washington. After over a year of viral images depicting isolation, sadness and the dystopian sight of abandoned city streets, Yoshia and her family have reminded us a new wave of images and moments we can look forward to: the long-awaited reunion.