by: anne jarvis
my mother died one year ago today.
we haven’t had a funeral yet.
she died during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic. funerals were limited to 10 people. we wanted all of mum’s family to be able to gather to remember her. so we waited.
when the first wave subsided, the funeral was scheduled for september. then two more relatives were infected with the novel coronavirus. we had to postpone the funeral again.
then the second wave hit, followed by the third wave.
so here we are, one year later.
i feel like mum has been robbed twice. i feel like we’ve been robbed twice.
mum lived in a long-term care home in hamilton, my hometown. my brother and i hadn’t been able to visit her since march. non-essential visitors were banned because of the pandemic.
then, that morning a year ago, the home notified my brother, who had power of attorney for personal care, that one family member at a time could visit her. my brother, who lives in hamilton, rushed to her bedside.
i couldn’t get there in time. it takes three hours to drive to hamilton. i said goodbye to mum in a small room on the second floor of the funeral home, where she was lying on a metal gurney.
a year later, we still can’t come together to honour her and lay her to rest in the family plot with her parents and husband of 57 years, my father.