Saying it has been a rough two and half years is like saying water is wet or the desert is hot. It is a complete understatement. 

We found ourselves suddenly cut off from the life we always knew. Many of us lost our jobs, our businesses, and our sense of security. We were isolated. We were no longer able to freely be with our families, friends, and loved ones. Many of us struggled with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. And worst of all, thousands and thousands of people died. 

COVID 19 killed people. And it wasn’t just the virus that killed. Isolation, loneliness, and other medical issues also killed. 

My family personally struggled with the death of my mother in September 2020. My mom did not die of COVID, but COVID contributed to her death. 

My mom suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She was diagnosed with this autoimmune disease in her early 40s. The disease ravaged her body, but it could not ravage her spirit. 

By the time COVID hit, my mom had been living in a skilled nursing facility in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for about two and a half years, and my dad was living in the independent living side of the same facility. 

Within weeks, skilled nursing facilities were completely shut down. No one was allowed to visit anyone in a skilled nursing facility. At first, we all understood the necessity. Residents of those facilities needed to be protected from contracting COVID. But days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, and it became apparent the isolation was having devastating effects on those elderly residents. 

My mom was a social butterfly. When she went to live at Evergreen, she became a voice for those in her household that had no voice. She advocated for residents who couldn’t advocate for themselves. She was an ordinary woman with substantial physical limitations, but she was also a woman who was the epitome of every fruit of the spirit, kind, gentle, self-controlled, patient, peaceful, loving, joyful, good, faithful. 

Before COVID shut down the facility, my siblings and I visited our parents regularly. We would have dinner with them. I would go weekly, often with my daughter and grandson. Mom lived for those visits. 

We would also take her on outings. Birthdays, holidays, Saturday and Sunday dinner were always held at my sister’s house where we would buzz around, and Mom would quietly watch and listen to the activity. She basked in the presence of her husband, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 

After COVID, we were reduced to visiting Mom outside her window. We could not touch her, and she could not touch us. Far more agonizing was the fact that my parents, who had been married for 61 years, could no longer visit with each other. They couldn’t hold hands. They couldn’t share a kiss. They could only talk to each other over the telephone, through the window, or from a “safe” distance while both were masked. 

It didn’t take long for my mother’s health to start to deteriorate. 

In June 2020, she had to have surgery to remove a melanoma from her face. But because she needed medical attention, my Dad would get a precious few minutes with her in the parking lot of the doctor’s office. I got to be with her when she had surgery. Despite the circumstances, we all thanked God for those precious moments. 

She was hospitalized again that July. It was becoming more evident that she was failing. But again, I was allowed to be with her while she was in the hospital. When she was discharged, we made sure my dad was there to be able to give her a hug and a kiss. 

Then, in mid-September, we received “the call.” Mom was failing. She didn’t want to go back to the hospital. We decided on palliative care. Once on palliative care, we were allowed to be with her – two of us at a time, 24 hours a day. We went in shifts. Three days later, she saw her Savior face-to-face. 

As Mom made the journey home, I spent the time with her reading to her, reminiscing about my childhood, talking to her about everything and nothing at all. 

When she was no longer lucid and slept most of the time, I prayed over her. I played her favorite music. I sat silently with her. 

My husband Jeff and I were with her Friday night. We were tired, and as hard as we tried to stay awake, we just couldn’t. Early Saturday morning I heard Jeff get up. He was standing by Mom. I asked him. “I think she’s gone,” he said. And she was. 

As sad as we were at that moment, we were also thankful. We were thankful for the blessing of being able to spend those last precious days of my mom’s life with her. So many people in this country and the world took a loved one to the hospital and never saw that loved one alive again. 

Too many doctors, nurses, and other medical staff were all too often the only people to be with those as they died. Too many were left with the heart crushing, mind numbing loss of loved ones taken, gone, dead. 

And then the questions, “If there is a God, how could he let this happen?” “Why God?!” “What did my daughter ever do to deserve this?” “How can I go on without him?” 

Despondency, hopelessness, anger, depression, heartache beyond human endurance. 

And it is often in the deepest, darkest valleys of our lives we find God. For some of us, it is for the very first time. For others, it is a turning back, so to speak. 

When we cry out to God in our grief and pain, we want to know he hears us. We want to be embraced. We want to feel his peace – the peace that passes all understanding. 

So we find comfort in God’s promises. Psalm 23:4 tells us, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff comfort me” (NIV). 

As the passion of Jesus draws closer, he comforts his disciples by saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1, NIV).

And after his resurrection, Jesus tells his disciples, “ . . . and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NIV). 

We have lived, and continue to live, in one of the most difficult times in human history. We have seen great suffering. We have endured immeasurable heartache. Even so, as believers we know that we do not go through anything in our lives, not even COVID, where Jesus has not first stood. We will not succumb to despair because our hope is in Jesus.  

While I miss my mom, some days more than I think I can possibly endure, I am so very thankful she no longer endures the agony of arthritis. She is whole. She is well. And she is always and forever with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

I love you, Mom. Until we meet again.