How do You Cope When Your Elderly Parents are Abroad During COVID-19?

With so much of the world sheltering-in-place for COVID-19, people with aging parents are already nervous. That concern is particularly keen for Indian Americans in the South Bay with aging parents in India.

Meeta Singh moved from Delhi to Utah in 2010 with her husband, daughter and son. Since then, they’ve moved to Morgan Hill, California and her children left home for college. But after COVID-19 closed many schools, both kids are home for the next few weeks.

“The house is full and it’s nice to have family around, but, of course, under these circumstances, everybody is pretty tense,” Singh said.

Singh feels especially tense these days when she thinks about her parents, who still live in India. After not seeing them for three years, she was planning a trip in April to stay with them for a month. Her trip got cancelled when COVID-19 hit.

So far, there have been about 117 reported deaths in India, a relatively small number for a country of 1.3 billion people. But on March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a nationwide lockdown until April 14. The rules are similar to those for the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place orders: stay inside and only go out for essential services like grocery shopping and to seek medical attention.

But the Indian Police are using force against people they believe are breaking lockdown rules.

Singh’s parents are doing their best to stay inside, but Singh is still worried. Both her parents are diabetic and her mom just got an ear infection.

“I’m thankful to God that the medicines are being delivered to home and [my mother] is getting her medication, whatever she needs,” Singh said. But, “For the first time, they’re all alone,” she added.

Usually, one of her two brothers is home to take care of her parents. But her elder brother is stuck in London and her younger brother was sent to Singapore for pilot training. Worse, Singh is nervous that her mom may be getting cabin fever.

“Yesterday she had gone out for a walk, and I said ‘No, you’re not allowed at all,” Singh said. “She said, ‘no, I just go and there’s nobody around and it’s all safe,’ and I said ‘No! Mom, you can’t go out!”

Singh talks to her parents every day on WhatsApp. They tell her they’re doing fine and that she shouldn’t worry about them. But she still does.