On a recent March afternoon outside of a Brentwood senior living facility, David DeLoach is playing a lap steel guitar on a cart — his “lap steel mobile,” he calls it.
His mother is standing on her balcony in a Brentwood senior living facility.
“I’m going to play you ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow,'” DeLoach tells her.
He is respecting all the strict social distancing guidelines imposed on living facilities.
“It’s good to just see each other face to face even though we are 30, 40 feet apart,” DeLoach says.
Every retirement community and nursing home in Tennessee is under a mandatory lockdown by order of Gov. Bill Lee.
Courtesy of Jenny DeLoach David DeLoach serenades his mother at her Brentwood senior living facility.
84-year-old Lewanna Fields is a resident here, at Harmony at Brentwood.
“When I moved in here, I moved in for freedom — if you can believe it,” Fields told WPLN News from her first floor balcony. “I moved in here for just the opposite of what we’ve got right now.”
Fields says she is learning little by little the importance of staying home to protect others.
“Anytime I’m tempted to slip out the door — and I have been — anytime I slip out the door, I think of that and I have to turn around and come back,” Fields says. “I cannot imagine exposing somebody.”
Fields says she also misses the hug of her daughter. But her kids will come talk to her from the sidewalk or at least call regularly.
“Everybody is living on the edge, and just hearing her voice gives me a ray of confidence,” Fields says.
For those who don’t get to hear from their families, they have DeLoach, the music man who serenades his mom. He also plays for anyone who cares to listen. And while he visits, he likes to give the seniors some words of encouragement.
“I just tell them ‘You guys are important,'” DeLoach says. “‘People out here are thinking about you and, listen, I want to reassure you it’s going to be OK.’”
The statewide ban on visitors expires on April 14, but residents at senior living facilities are well aware the lockdown could last much longer.
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