Minnesota front-line workers on pandemic: 'There's still a little healing to do'

Sabrina Collins' hair is back. The 46-year-old nursing home assistant cut her hair last April, after the stress of her job in a senior care center caused it to thin. Her hair had been down to her shoulders before she chopped it to 3 inches. Now, she can tie it back into a small pigtail.

"When I can pull it all back and put it in a binder, that's like, 'Hey, that's progress,' " Collins said.

Progress is something that's difficult to gauge in the lives of many of Minnesota's essential workers.

When COVID-related restrictions were eased this spring, many people returned to more normal routines. But for front-line workers — many of whom needed to maintain rigid protocols — there wasn't the same release, the same relaxing into normal.

Now that summer is winding down and the threat of the delta variant seems to be ramping up, we checked in with four local front-line workers to see how they've been faring.

There's healing to do

Sabrina Collins estimates she's 78% past the pandemic.

It's been hard on the St. Paul single mom and widow, especially in her job as a nursing assistant at Ebenezer Care Center in Minneapolis, where she's worked for nearly 20 years.

At the height of the pandemic, she put in long and erratic hours, assisting residents with everything from dressing to eating. Back then, nursing homes — considered ground zero for COVID-19 — were fortresses, closed to visitors and on high alert for the disease.

These days, her hours are back to normal, though her shifts are irregular because she's covering for coworkers' vacation time.

Her 14-year-old son has had a busy summer, and Collins has been running him to taekwondo practice and tutoring sessions.

And while she keeps some of the COVID protocols — wearing a mask, frequently washing her hands, keeping surfaces sanitized at home — she's become more comfortable being around others who have been vaccinated.

In mid-July, she got together with a group of moms from her son's taekwondo class.

"We all said, 'Is it OK to hug each other?' " Collins said. "We were like, 'I'm a hugger! I'm a hugger! I'm a hugger!' "

As the fall approaches, Collins hopes to pick up where she left off before the pandemic, moving to a new house, restarting the application process to become a Metro Transit bus driver.

While she's aware of the threat the variant poses, she's taking things slowly, returning to normal cautiously and waiting for her hair to grow into a full-fledged ponytail.

"There's still a little healing to do," she said.

Longing for unity

Marcia Rowe didn't think of herself as a front-line worker.

"We just did what we did, you know, and I never looked at myself as an essential employee," said Rowe, operations supervisor at the White Bear Lake and Highland Park Lunds & Byerlys.

But when she looks back on the fearful customers and the panicked buying frenzies that made store employees the face of scarcity, it hits home.

"It was like their fear was pushed toward us," Rowe said. "You have no idea you're getting like that until all of a sudden, you can just see it in the eyes of somebody like your cashier, that we can't take much more."

While the stores have left the plexiglass barriers in place and many workers are still wearing masks, Rowe has felt comfortable enough to talk openly about the pandemic past with employees and hug a few longtime customers.

Life seems a bit more balanced, like people have started to release tension and "maybe enjoy life a little bit better," she said.

Before the end of the year, she hopes to attend a few large get-togethers and plans to visit her son out of state. Most of all, she hopes the divisions that deepened with the pandemic come to an end.

"I want people to just put that aside and let's live in some unity," Rowe said. "Back to the way we were beforehand, instead of a separation wedge that came between all of us."

Focusing on what matters

Sarah Fourre is worn out.

A janitorial steward, she cleans a medical clinic in Minneapolis. Early in the pandemic, when little was known about the spread of the disease, Fourre was awash in fear. A year later, she's reduced her hours and started taking a few days off a month to rest.

"I'm very reflective now," Fourre said. "It's different now, just a sense of loss, I don't know how to describe it. I felt like crying all through the pandemic from a deep place, and it's still kind of there."

She's trying to refocus her energy. Instead of going out shopping or out to eat, she's meeting with other union stewards, connecting with her northeast Minneapolis neighbors on Nextdoor and seeing family more often.

She's also planted an emergency food garden in her front yard, growing potatoes, squash and herbs in case there are future shortages. She plans to dedicate more of her time to sustainability causes.

"Hopefully, we're moving on," Fourre said. "We're struggling through. We've got to have hope, yup. We've got to have hope and we've got to keep going. There's no other choice, you know?"

Connecting, relaxing, persisting

When Asha Hassan started as a community outreach nurse at M Health Fairview Cedar-Riverside clinic in October, her duties included assisting the metro area's East African communities with COVID-19 education, testing, referrals and vaccinations.

But by early this summer, she was weary of combating misinformation and vaccine hesitancy as the delta variant was emerging. She realized she was thinking about her job 24/7.

"Thinking about 'What is going on? Why they don't take the vaccine?' " Hassan, 63, said. "You know, all this 'why' that I'm taking home? I don't like it."

July was her turnaround month. She went to a party with family and friends, one of her first since the pandemic began. After that, she began to feel more comfortable in social situations. She attended a wedding and babysat her grandchildren, coming home after work to bounce on the trampoline with them. Later in the month, she took a few days off for Eid al-Adha and visited with friends from Washington and North Carolina.

"We gained a little bit of weight, eating out, going out every day so," Hassan said with a laugh.

She's still keeping her guard up, wearing masks in public and maintaining social distance around strangers. And she's still encouraging people to get vaccinated, but she's less frantic, less frustrated. Finally being able to connect with friends and family helped her relax.

"Either I'm easing down or things are getting to normal," she said. "I feel better, believe me, much better."

Madison Karas • 612-673-7394