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I Couldn’t Watch My Mother Die
Can I live without saying goodbye when Covid kept me out of her hospital room?
The plan, devised in early February with the help of her doctors, was perfect. My mom, who had been in a pulmonary rehab for a month as a result of severe COPD, would come home to her house on Lake Lanier the first week in March, 2020. My cousin, Maureen, would come from Texas, pick her up from rehab and stay with her for the first week until I could get there during my two week vacation from my teaching job. I could relieve Maureen and take care of my mom for the two weeks the doctors said she needed to be on her own again. If she needed home care, I would arrange it before coming back to Boston.
Then Covid came. But even before the world shut down, I knew my mom was terrified to die. And I had no idea how to help her.
In January of 2020, my phone rang at 5:30 AM before my alarm and startled me out of a sound sleep. Something was wrong and I knew it. Phones never ring in the wee hours of the morning with good news. My mom had been in the hospital for a week with difficulty breathing.
She has lost almost 15 pounds over the course of the last year and had struggled with deconditioning since a debilitating car accident several months earlier. My mother had been hit from behind at 40 mph…
