A week ago we put my mother on hospice and relocated her out of her memory care facility into my sister’s home. She had completely stopped eating and her GI system was shutting down. Hurdles remain, but she has improved remarkably in the intervening week.

The sole contact she had with family after March 15 was by FaceTime or during a brief hospitalization (for not eating and drinking). Her contact even with non-family-members was almost entirely with masked faces.

Seeing smiles again and enjoying family again, she has made a remarkable turnaround. Only God knows the future, but I think she may recover. A fellow pastor had a nearly identical situation unfold with his father, who is now recovered.

Count my mother as a near-victim not of COVID-19 but of COVID-19 restrictions.

I do not stand in criticism of the choice to put these restrictions in place. Something had to be done to protect nursing homes from this virus. I’m just saying that the next time around we are going to have to give serious consideration to what we have learned from this:

Isolation kills, too.

(Picture: Mom’s face the moment when I put her in the car to take her out of her facility to my sister’s house.)