My mother died of Covid-19. That is the context in which I write this blog post. She was 90 years old and lived in a nursing home. Those two factors made her easy prey early in the pandemic. Before the staff were tested. Before masks were required. My mother’s roommate died first. Then my mom. A few days later, it was the woman across the hall. Her daughter and I are from the same small town. The deaths of our mothers have brought us together. We have bonded over the irksome tone that some politicians (and average citizens) have taken. People who have ignored masks for no other reason that they just don’t want to wear them. Or they don’t think Covid is real or a big deal.

I felt hurt by people who espoused these thoughts. It hurt last year, and it still hurts now. Do they care? It feels like too many do not.

When I called my mom on Friday, April 10, 2020, right away, she said, “Guess what! I have news.” My mom hardly ever had news. It seemed she was glad to have some to share. But her next words took my breath. She said, “They moved my roommate out.”

Three days later, on Monday, April 13, the nursing home tested my mother for Covid. The next day, a Tuesday, the results came back. Positive. Within the hour, the social worker needed to know if they should transfer my mother to the hospital. My mom had made her wishes known again and again, consistently, for decades. No heroic measures. We opted for hospice, right there in the Covid wing of the nursing home. By the time I could drive an hour to get there, they had already moved her. We, her family, stood outside her window. She was in her wheelchair, a phone to her ear, listening to us from the other side of the glass.

The next day, a Wednesday, I called her first thing. What unfolded was the most important conversation between the two of us. I assured her that she had taught us, her children, to honor family and love God. I assured her that we were okay. Then, I said, “If you need permission to go, I want you to know, you have it.” A split second passed and she said, “I’ll take it.”

My mother was one of the most positive people you will ever meet. Oh, she had her quiet anguish. But she felt it important to keep the hard times of her life to herself. The times with family seemed, to her, fewer and fleeting as she grew older, and she didn’t want to waste one precious second on negativity. She missed seeing her family when she went into the home. Her world shrank, and she naturally became dependent upon who called or visited and who didn’t. Many did. Some didn’t.

The rest of the conversation with my mom, that last conversation, on Wed. April 15, consisted of a leisurely, unrushed discussion. And for once, my mother asked me questions. She was not usually one to inquire. She just wasn’t. I think she was afraid she’d offend someone by being “intrusive.” On that day, she asked me questions such as, Who do you want to meet in Heaven? And the biggie, one about my father. Which won’t be posted here on a public forum. Suffice it to say that she and I said things to each other that had never been said. And she kept saying, “You’re doing me such a service.” What she meant is that I was “allowing” her to exit this life on Earth that had become unbearable. One where she spent long days in a nursing home, a place she never wanted to end up—she had said so over and over. She’d lost her middle child (my brother Paul) in 2005. This meant living 15 years without his frequent phone calls. To say that she was as ready as she could be, well, that’s what I’m saying.

Sometimes, we need to think more about what a dying person needs to hear than what it is that we wish could be true. Sometimes, we need to say the things we always meant to say. Thank you. I love you. Give assurances that they lived a good life. That they taught us to love, to honor, to cherish. And then tell them, I’ll see you in Heaven. And I will, Mom. I’ll see you in Heaven. Til then, I love you so much it hurts.

Melanie Holmes