Lori Corriveau had been counting the days since she last saw her daughter. Monday, November 8, was day 604.
When the U.S. reopened its border on Monday, allowing families from Canada to reunite with their loved ones, the Windsor woman and her husband were among the thousands who made the trek.
Allen Park is just a 25-minute drive from Corriveau's east Windsor house. For the past 19 months, the distance has been immeasurable.
"It was hard. It was hard, but we knew that eventually, the day would come," she said, back home in East Windsor. "We knew that day would be a day we would never forget."
Lori Corriveau and her infant granddaughter on November 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Lori Corriveau)
Standing on her daughter's porch, Corriveau cried as she hugged her daughter and met her infant granddaughter, Margaret, for the first time.
"I looked at the baby, and it's almost like she didn't look real," Corriveau recounted. "I've only ever known her on a screen."
Margaret recognized her grandmother from the daily, sometimes more than daily, Facetime visits. Within an hour, the two were "best buds," playing on the floor together.
Then came time to meet her older granddaughter, five-year-old Lucy, at school.
Corriveau said she and her husband hid behind a tree at first, but when Lucy saw them, she ran to them.
"She said that it felt like a dream, and it was the best day of her life," Corriveau said.
The trip was costly.
Corriveau said she and her husband paid over $200 each to get the required PCR test at a Windsor pharmacy on Saturday before they crossed the border. In the future, she plans to get it in Detroit. The Corriveaus are planning a second trip for the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday.
She said she supports PCR testing for trips longer than one day but questions the efficacy for day trips.
"When you have it here, and you go over there for a day, and you can take that test that you had in Canada after you've visited your family and maybe gone to a restaurant, and maybe gone to a store, and you get to use that test," she explained.
On the day the Corriveaus and many other Canadians crossed the border for those reunions with loved ones, border city mayors joined the chorus calling on Ottawa to scrap the PCR test requirement.
Dilkens called the test discriminatory because many families can not afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a day trip. New York Congressman Brian Higgins warned it could slow economic recovery from the pandemic.
On Monday, some officials admitted the federal government is reviewing it. However, they also cautioned there would be no change coming soon.
