A sign of compassion, the simple act of hugging, has become very complicated in the age of the new pandemic.

After I shared a photo of my friend, Cheryl Norton, hugging her daughter, Kelsey Kerr, an ICU nurse at Christ Hospital, the reaction was overwhelming. People understood what the impromptu gesture represents. How much we need one another. How much we live fully in the small moments.

And, quite specifically, how a mother is not easily barricaded away from a daughter who might need her, even if just for the briefest of respites.

“It felt like my heart went, ahhh. It felt so good to hold her for a second,” Cheryl said. “The thing that was interesting about the photograph is you could see how tight she was holding me. It was like she was home again. She was safe in my arms. For that moment, for that split second, she was safe.”

Cheryl said it was a spontaneous decision to drape her daughter and embrace. Kelsey was stopping by to pick up prayer shawls for critically ill patients and as she walked outside, her eyes fell on a sheet in her clean clothes basket and she thought, “I can put this over her.”

“I did it for me. But that was kind of selfish. I did it for her also because I didn't want her to feel like she was contaminated.”

Cheryl said she had read that health care workers were feeling so isolated. She added, “You put your life on the line and then you come home.” And you have to social distance from your family.

“I probably won’t hug her for a couple months, even if I do get to see her, which I probably won’t.”

After she hugged her daughter, Cheryl said she placed the sheet in the garage to sit for three days before washing. And she washed her hands.

Kelsey went back to working on the front lines.