#Florida woman takes dishwashing job at nursing home to see husband amid pandemic

A Florida woman took a dishwashing job at her husband’s nursing home after the facility barred visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mary Daniel, 57, said she reached out to the staff at Rosecastle at Deerwood, an assisted living facility in Jacksonville, to see if she could volunteer or get a job there so she could see her spouse, Steve, TODAY reported.

“They said, ‘Let’s wait to see what happens,’” Daniel told the outlet.

“Then, out of the blue two weeks ago, they called and said, ‘Do you want a job?’ When I found out it was as a dishwasher, I thought, ‘Well, okay! I guess I’m a dishwasher now.’”

Daniel said she was required to take several coronavirus tests and undergo intense training before starting her part-time job.

“I had to have a background check, a drug test, a COVID test, 20 hours of video training on everything, including infectious diseases. It was 100 percent legit,” she said.

After 114 days apart, she was able to finally reunited with her 66-year-old husband, who has Alzheimer’s.

“I walked into his room and he said my name, he said Mary, which was also a relief,” Daniel told CNN. “So when he said, Mary, and gave me the biggest hug, I mean, we both cried.”

She said isolation had taken a toll on her husband — who was used to her coming in every night to get him ready for bed — but that he seemed to be more at ease now, even giving her a hug during a recent shift.

“He came up from behind me and put his arms around the front of me … which is an incredible feeling,” she told CNN. “So, he knows who I am. There’s no question, he knows who I am even in a mask.”