Neosho, Missouri - The coronavirus pandemic has
restricted almost everyone's freedoms in America but for Meghan
Lindsey it has done the opposite. This is the freest she has
ever felt.
Traveling to New York City at age 33 to work as a Covid-19
nurse was the first time that Meghan, a married mother of two,
had ever left southwest Missouri.
"It was my first time on a plane," she said, describing how
she came to work 12-hour shifts in the intensive care unit at
NYU Winthrop Hospital.
"Flying into New York was the first time I'd ever seen the
ocean."
There are many stories about the lonely coronavirus deaths
in the city's hospitals and the traumatic work of the nurses who
staff them.
Meghan's story is about unexpected opportunities. It's a
story of how the pandemic gave a woman the chance to strike out
into the world, confront danger and make a difference, and how
her husband stayed home to care for their daughters. It's a
story about new beginnings.
"I always wanted to do something for my country," said
Meghan. "This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do
something meaningful."
Meghan's first nursing shifts in New York were a shock.
Meghan Lindsey wearing a protective face mask after her shift on Mother’s Day in her hotel elevator hotel in the Queens borough of New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
There are a lot of sick people in Missouri with chronic
diseases like diabetes, where the progressions are slow and the
declines are familiar.
Covid-19 patients are stunned by a virus that turns their
lives upside down and in many cases ends them.
"One of my patients had her toes done up all nice and pretty
and still had her jewelry on," said Meghan.
Because they were coronavirus patients and visitors were
banned, it was Meghan who would hold their hands as they died.
Meghan Lindsey wears a protective face mask while driving in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
"Once you FaceTime and you meet their family and you hear
them crying and sobbing, you know their cute little nicknames
and you start to know them, it just gets to be really personal,"
said Meghan. "You have a hard time separating yourself and not
truly grieving for them as well."
Despite all of the death, Meghan's time in New York City's
Covid-19 wards was unexpectedly affirming. The pandemic gave
Meghan something that her life in Missouri so far had not: a
feeling of everything sliding into place.
When Meghan graduated from nursing school, it wasn't like
she imagined. It turned out to be just a job. She mourned.
"Now for once, it's actually something important," said
Meghan. "This is the first time since I've become a nurse that
it's like, 'yes, this is why.' I can make a difference, and I
can help, and I am strong enough for this."
Her kids, she said, are proud. "They know that what I'm
doing is hard and that I put my life in danger."
Meghan Lindsey and Nekiesha Clark take pictures at Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Meghan is from a small town in Missouri. Most Sundays, she
goes to church. Her mom was a manager at Walmart and her dad
worked construction. Before he lost his job to the pandemic, her
husband Aaron sold fire suppression systems to small businesses.
Meghan is the first in her family to finish college and has
long held her family together. As thrilling as it was to be in
New York, it was also hard.
Meghan often wondered if she should come home. Her husband
Aaron told her no. He and the girls were fine, what she was
doing mattered and he was proud of her. He sometimes called her
superwoman.
Meghan Lindsey uses a computer to FaceTime her family after her shift on Mother’s Day inside her hotel room in the Queens borough of New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
"If he wasn't such a good dad and there for my children, I
could never do this," said Meghan. He deserves credit too, she
said, "but I guess you could say the limelight's on me."
Being a Covid-19 travel nurse isn't glamorous. Meghan had to
wear protective gear during her shifts and there was a lengthy
decontamination process when she got home each night. She lived
in a hotel room with another nurse and had to find a laundromat
every few days to wash her scrubs.
But sometimes it did feel like a grand adventure. She saw
the Statue of Liberty. She heard someone speaking Russian. She
learned how to fold a slice of pizza.
Meghan Lindsey wears a protective face mask looking at a menu in the Chinatown section of Manhattan in New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Restaurants sometimes gave her and her friends free food
"because we're nurses," she said with a bit of awe. She took
selfie after selfie standing in the middle of empty New York
City streets and no cabbies honked at her.
Her husband Aaron said he was sometimes a little jealous
(it's New York), occasionally worried (again, New York), but
mostly he was just really proud. "Meghan hasn't been out there
in the world," he said. She nailed it.
Travelling nurse Meghan Lindsey points to a pack of cigarettes at a gas station in the Queens borough of New York. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Now, at the end of her contract, Meghan is unsure of what
the future holds.
A welcome home cake at a party for travelling nurse Meghan Lindsey, who returned home after working five weeks at NYU Winthrop Hospital. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
She is back in a small town in the Midwest. She no longer
has a job and she is coming off the biggest high of her life.
She sometimes asks herself, will I have the desire to go back to
this life?
Meghan Lindsey holds her daughter Braelyn during Sunday morning service at the Joplin Family Worship Center in Joplin, Missouri. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Something about New York stood out to her: people there had
aspirations to make something of themselves.
Meghan Lindsey leads her daughter Braelyn, 9, on a horse at a farm outside of Joplin, Missouri. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters