BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) ––– As COVID restrictions loosen, many families are celebrating Mother’s Day in person for the first time in a year.

“Can you imagine the difference this year versus last year,” says nursing home resident Terry Moore.

Like most mothers in retirement homes, she is finally able to celebrate Mother’s Day with her family after the pandemic kept them apart for nearly a year.

“I’m so proud that I could invite my children to come have Mother’s Day with me, it made my day so special,” she says.

But it’s not the gifts that she is looking forward to. “When the children were growing up, they always bought you cute little gifts and things like that. You get to my age, you don’t need anything. There’s nothing that they can think of to give to you. So just having them walk in the door and you hear them say, hi mom. It sounds wonderful,” she says.

Residents were not the only ones excited for in-person gatherings.

“It’s been an exciting change. It’s been a very long year. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been waiting for this day,” says Malayne Sharp, the Executive Director of La Plantation.

The staff made a plan that would allow families to come together again. “We came up with the idea to do a mother’s day brunch, which we were able to hold outside. We’re able to invite all of the families,” Sharp says.

A similar sentiment was felt over at St. James Place, where President and CEO Dick Wager says he and his team put together a special Mother’s Day brunch for their residents and families.

“Literally, I’ve seen tears where family and a resident that hadn’t seen their mother or their grandmother in just about a year and it’s just tears of joy down their faces,” Wager says.

Families are grateful to be together again and are looking forward to making up for a lost time.