Through a window: Plano man finds new ways to connect with mother in senior living home

Brett Will Taylor and his mother Barbara have a close bond. Taylor spends half of his time living in Plano and the other in New Orleans. But for now, he lives in a house down the road from his mom, who lives at Sunrise Senior Living in Plano. 

News of COVID-19 infecting residents of assisted living homes has made headlines for weeks. For Taylor, the decision to keep his mom in the facility was not an easy one. 

“It was like a punch in the gut to realize that I needed to really ask myself if the place I had moved my mother into to keep her safe, if that place was now unsafe,” Taylor said.

The answer came to him after extensive data research and conversations with staff at the senior living community. But he still had questions. 

“If I could just have her in front of me, in this house, would that make her safer?” Taylor said. “What I had to do was acknowledge again that in terms of her regular care, no, because I can't give her the care she needs.”

Every other day, Taylor drives to Sunrise in the evening and stands outside his mother’s window. To keep from disrupting other residents, he stands at a distance from the building. He dials his mom’s phone number and waits for her to wave through the window. 

“I call her and then literally, like the queen or the pope, the drapes open and my mother appears at the window and we go from there.” 

According to Taylor, they discuss the news, the food she’s eating, and how the birds who visit her home are going to survive social distancing. 

“My mother's comment, she's joking about it, but she's like ‘I just think those birds are going to be too thin, and what if they move to another senior community that gives them better food?’” Taylor said.

Aside from concerns on the birds’ well-being, Taylor said his mother is doing well. 

“She feels very safe and she feels very at peace where she is. And that has continued even with the dark clouds and scary clouds of COVID.”

Taylor has recorded his time caring for his mother from the outside through blogging. He said he wants his experience to help others who are struggling with similar emotions.

“More and more of us are in the same situation I'm in where we are middle-aged folks, finding ourselves needing to take care or be more active in the care of our elderly parents,” he said.

Taylor wants people to know they are allowed to be gentle on themselves and remember their parents are individuals. 

“They deserve to go through the final stages of their lives as an individual as much as we all did to be raised as kids,” he said.

The solution to uncertainty and fear can be simple, he said.

“If you can just hold on and go to that love, it will be OK. You'll know what to do.”