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On Monday morning at 3 AM, the telephone rang. It was the assisted care facility calling to tell me that my mother had died. At 3:30 AM, the phone rang again. It was the funeral home calling. They had sent someone to pick up the body. Both my mother and father had paid for their funerals in advance.

A little over 10 years ago, my mother and father made plans to move into an assisted care facility in Sebring, Florida. Days before they were to make the move, my father died. My mother went ahead with the move, and I think she enjoyed her new home. Even more when she became unable to do many things because of her bad hips. They refused to operate on her because of her advanced age. She died at 101 years old. She and my father had moved to Sebring in the 1970s. They had made many friends in the community.

The last year of her life was made more difficult first by the virus. No one was allowed to come to visit her, but we could call. That ended this fall when she suffered a broken leg attempting to close the blinds in her bedroom. She could still stand. I think what happened was she stood to close the blinds and perhaps didn’t lock her wheelchair causing the fall. She spent a few days in the hospital and then went back to the facility to stay at the rehabilitation center. That meant we could call her. We could get as far as the nurse’s station in the rehabilitation center. We never could get her room that way. It was a frustrating and challenging time for us.

We discovered the activities director was setting up video chats. We were able to talk to her, although the drugs that she was on left her both sleepy and confused. She could hear our voices and continued to look all around. It was clear she did not understand the concept of video chatting. She was looking all around, trying to find out where we were in her room. Her broken leg was refusing to heal. She thought all her friends there in Sebring were not coming to see her because they had left her. She did not seem to understand that it was the virus that was causing their non-visits.

In truth, the last couple of months of her life were true hell for her. Because I had durable power of attorney, I had to approve medication changes. Finally, I had to turn to palliative care near the end. Her anxiety over her loss of friends was causing her great anxiety, and they started using Lorazepam. Once that drug was started, she was no longer part of this world. She could not communicate but only mumble. The doctor agreed that she could be taken off the Lorazepam for a two-week trial. However, her condition continued to decline until her death before the two-week trial was over.

She grew up during the Great Depression. She and my father were married just before the start of World War II. She worked in a defense plant as a nurse during the war. After the war, my father started moving up in the business community. Each new job meant a new town. My mother seemed to be pleased with his move into higher and higher-status positions. Finally, in 1958, my father took over what is called a Western Hemisphere Corporation, and we moved to Toronto, Canada. He continued to hold that job until his retirement in the mid-70s. I think she had a wonderful life and truly enjoyed it until near the very end