March - Hubby retired from his job and then the world shut down while I was on spring break. I began obsessively following the news and the city scanner information and freaking myself out. We had to have some kind of online teaching presence to end the rest of the school year.
Summer - Spent the whole time wondering and worrying how we were going to teach classes that specifically caused voice, breath and spittle particles to fly around the room.
August - Finally got some answers. The first few weeks of school were strictly online. No one in person. Singing doesn't translate very well to computer screens and online assignments.
September - Now began teaching in person and online. All risers and room equipment moved out, replaced with chairs and stands. Anytime we sang we had to put on masks and shields which were hot and uncomfortable. We had to simultaneously hold classes for the students in front of us and make it work for the students online. All my time was spent stationary at the piano. Little did I know this would begin a downward health decline.
October - Beginning of the month my mom (who lived about 6 hours away in the Rio Grande Valley or RGV) started having heart issues and had to be taken to the hospital to have a pacemaker installed. Once she was discharged, I got her settled and I made plans for Hubby and I to be back at the end of the month to take care of things around the property.
While I was at my Mom's my partially impacted wisdom tooth on the right decided it needed to come out, signaling me with pain and infection. As soon as I arrived back in Houston, I had it removed. This was a whole other level of life long dentist phobia and the recovery was painful and not fun.
Hubby and I went back to Mom's at the end of October to help around her house and do some upkeep jobs. This would be the last time I was with her at home.
To understand the next part you need to know about my mom and dad. My parents met when my mom was in the Peace Corps in Panama which is where I was born. They divorced when I was 3. My dad stayed in Panama and my mom came back to the States with me. My dad was in and out of my life, so I basically thought of my mom as a single parent and myself as an only child all of my life. However during my 40s, I had the opportunity to go to Panama a few times to see my dad and meet half brothers and sisters as well as other family.
December - Mom turned 80. When I called her on her birthday mid-month, I could hear that she was wheezing a little bit while she talked and her voice sounded a little higher than normal. I was assured she was fine and I wasn't going to pry on her birthday.
Mom went to the ER a few days later and I made the 6 hour trip down. She was feeling weak and had shortness of breath. After 24 hours in the ER they moved her to the Covid wing (this was before the shot was even out). Her rapid test came back negative. We waited for the PCR test to come back. All her symptoms pointed to Covid so they started her on the treatment but nothing was improving.
On the evening of the 20th, while endlessly waiting in the hotel room in the Valley, I received a message from my Panamanian family that my dad was seriously ill and in the hospital. The next morning he was gone. As I was trying to process this, the doctor at Mom's hospital told me that my mom was not expected to live. That was a very dark day and I will never forget it.
Later that awful evening I saw in the hospital online portal that she actually tested negative for Covid. She was moved from the Covid floor the next day and I finally got to see her. Her lungs were still in distress but they finally started looking at other possibilities and decided that one of her heart medications might be the culprit.
She slowly began to work her way down the oxygen requirement. Very slowly. After a few days we realized that this recovery was going to take a long time so we made the decision to drive her beloved cats to Houston and transfer them to my aunt so they could be looked after for a few weeks or months (something I still feel guilty about).
I spent Christmas Eve with her and was back at the hospital on the 27th. She seemed to have plateaued and now tested positive for the flu. At 3 a.m. on the 30th I get a phone call from the hospital. The nurse said my mom wanted to talk to me and when she got on the phone she said “Let me go. You have to let me go. No more medicine.” After consultation with the nurse, I told mom I would talk to her in the morning. I thought she was having a bad night of anxiety and things would be better when I got there.
But no. She was determined. She said she wasn’t getting better, she wanted me to let her go and that she didn’t want to live like this. Up until this point she was independent and did not like relying on other people. The hardest thing I have ever done is respect her wishes and agree to palliative care. I asked over and over if she was sure up until she asked me to sign the paperwork in her stead. And that was it. Less than 48 hours after that 3 am call she was gone, shortly after midnight on January 1st. 11 days after my dad.