An unbreakable bond: how one Winnipeg couple overcomes quarantine
Posted May 3, 2020 6:32 pm.
WINNIPEG (CITYNEWS) – With restrictions in place at personal care homes, one Winnipeg couple has found a special way to keep in touch.
Sam and Shirley Kleiman have been married 70 years. Because the couple can’t be in direct contact with each other, they connect while separated by a glass window every single day.
“It’s been a lifetime of being together and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Sam Kleiman. “It’s important for me to do this so that Shirley sees me, and she knows that I’m still around.
“Her concern is me and my concern is her. It’s a mutual thing. It’s automatic.”
Every afternoon, 92-year-old Shirley Kleiman is wheeled from her bedroom at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre to a window. Her husband Sam is always waiting to greet her on the other side of the glass.
Kleiman says it’s important for him to visit his wife on a daily basis.
“We have always dealt with it together,” he said, “and this is the way we will continue to do so.”
In March, the province of Manitoba suspended visits inside long-term care facilities to reduce the spread of COVID-19. So Kleiman has been visiting his wife this way every day for the last month and a half.
“She’s not going anywhere and as long as she’s not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere.”
Kleiman says the key to a long-lasting marriage is loving one another unconditionally. He believes the pandemic is just a bump on their long journey.
