My mother died as the COVID-19 pandemic raced across the nation with wildfire ferocity.
At age 92 years, she was frail and living with advancing dementia. Until the pandemic took hold, upending my mother’s life, I was the first-response daughter who lived closest to her 2-bedroom apartment. With New York on the verge of lockdown, we played out our options—uprooting Mom from her native New York vs our fear of her remaining in place and contracting COVID-19. Our family ultimately decided to move Mom near my middle sister in New Hampshire, a state relatively untouched by COVID-19. Our hope was to avoid caregiving chaos during a pandemic and to protect our mother from contracting the virus.