Kiszla: Saying goodbye, unable to give a final hug to my dying mother, during the time of coronavirus

During the final minutes of her life, heartbeat fading, my mother was too weak to speak or open her eyes. But 1,500 miles away from where hospice had gently laid her down to die, I felt the strength of her spirit pushing me out the door. So I grabbed cross-country skis from the garage, clicked boots into my bindings and glided across a cold, empty meadow, where I surrendered Mom to the hand of God.

Wrapped in clouds spitting snow, Parry Peak seemed to float above my tiny Colorado mountain town on the afternoon of April 18. Four long, thin, parallel ridges of rock ascend toward the peak’s summit, like outstretched fingers that can touch the sky. From the valley below, it resembles a palm extended toward heaven. That’s why instead of Parry, I’ve always called this beautiful 13,000-foot peak God’s Hand.

Whispering “Love you, Mom” as my tears plopped on the pockmarked snow of early spring, that mountain gave me peace with each plant of my ski poles.

Then my cell phone pinged.

And I knew Mom was gone.

“Her last breath was at 5:53,” texted my brother Chris. He sat, with face covered by an N95 surgical mask, inside a far-away hospice room in Florida, where he was the lone family member allowed to be present as Bonnie Jean Kiszla passed away at age 88.

Mom did not die from COVID-19, which has tragically killed more 50,000 Americans, each with their own heartbreaking story. But I will curse the novel coronavirus forever, because as the pandemic locked down health care facilities nationwide, it robbed my mother of proper goodbyes and farewell hugs, while confined to a hospital bed for six weeks, slowly losing a battle against congestive heart failure.

I guarantee that being quarantined, unable to pet her dog during her final 41 days on earth, ticked off Mom, who always had a very loose relationship with rules that did not suit her.

My mother, bless her feisty soul, was never afraid to be a pain in the butt. She regarded backing down from any debate as a sign of weakness and was honest to a fault. Before she fell gravely ill, I asked which of her three sons was the most consistent source of trouble as a child.

“You were, because you always had to have your own way,” replied Mom, fixing me with her stare.

So now maybe John Elway, George Karl and Colorado sports icons who have rolled eyes at me in irritation have a little insight into why a pesky nature seems so deeply embedded in my DNA.

Born during the Great Depression to an immigrant milkman who delivered butter and cream by horse-drawn carriage, young Bonnie’s love of books was instilled by her mother, who considered literature as essential as water or air. The library was a free source of constant delight. “My Friend Flicka,” a novel published in 1941, allowed a young girl from Niles, Mich., to dream of bounding across the Western plains atop a fast colt that her own family, with six mouths to feed, could never afford.

In hard pursuit of dreams beyond reach, she learned to grab every attainable scrap of happiness with gusto. “I wanted to be an IRS agent … I would’ve caught all those people cheating on their taxes,” she told me nearly three months ago, during the last face-to-face conversation we ever enjoyed. Without benefit of a college degree, she forged a long, rewarding career in accounting, and eventually became co-owner of a hardware store with my now-departed father in Tampa, where they fled from gray Midwest winters in 1986.

Although tough-minded, Mom wrapped her seven grandchildren in quilts lovingly stitched by hand. She doted on her pet schnauzer, which she always named Corky (I, II and III), because why mess with a good thing? As an octogenarian, she still played Mahjong and water volleyball to win, because losing stinks. After her husband of 53 years passed away, Mom proudly maintained their four-bedroom, waterside home, annually staining the dock herself.

While eating breakfast in that house three days prior to this year’s Super Bowl, I sheepishly admitted my week-long visit would be extended, because The Denver Post’s sports editor, citing budgetary restrictions, forbid me from covering the Chiefs-Niners game, down in Miami Gardens.

“Since when have you behaved, or ever listened to anybody?” snapped my Mom. “Besides, I’m tired of you hanging around here. You’re going to that Super Bowl. Ask your boss for forgiveness when you get back to Colorado.” While adamantly refusing to loan me a Honda Civic that rarely budged from her garage to make the cross-state trip, she did sweetly offer: “You need gas money for a rental car?”

Spunky, uncompromising, always pushing me to do more. That was my Mom … or at least until March 8, when an ominous weight gripped her lungs, pinning her to the family-room sofa. An ambulance disturbed the Sunday peace of neighbors, leaving Corky to bark as paramedics closed the front door, then whisked Mom to the hospital, never to return home again.

On any given day in the United States, it’s not unusual for 8,000 people to pass away. But your Mom only dies once.

So as COVID-19 victims from New York to California are forced to say hasty goodbyes before being intubated, praying a ventilator will save them, my two brothers and I discovered new empathy for all American families with a loved one currently battling cancer, heart disease or any other terminal illness, forced by draconian precautions against a pandemic’s spread to face death isolated from lifelong friends and relatives.

“What’s going to happen to Jameis Winston?” Mom asked me from the landline in her hospital room, shortly after being admitted. At first, she was more concerned about the depth chart of her hometown NFL team in the wake of Tom Brady’s arrival than details on her medical chart, which revealed a vicious cycle fueled by a weak pulse, “wet” lungs and failing kidneys.

In the mad dash to the hospital, her eye glasses, computer tablet and dentures were left at home. As COVID fears quickly shut down access to Mom from all visitors, a nightmare began to unfold in agonizing slow motion.Updates on her health, promised regularly, were spotty, at best. Everything, even getting false teeth to her, became a challenge for my Tampa-based brother. I learned to curse 6780, the last four-digits of the number to the ICU, because overworked nurses were too busy to pick up the phone, much less connect me with Mom, to wish her happy Easter.

On the final Monday of her life, a frantic pulmonary nurse advised Mom might require a ventilator within an hour, which prompted our family to decide that device would be better utilized to assist a younger patient battling coronavirus. Shortly thereafter, the last big request my mother would ever make prompted a physician to ask: “Does your Mom own a horse? She wants me to bring it to the hospital, so she can get on it and ride out of here.”

On the afternoon of April 17, sensing Mom’s death was near, an angel from LifePath Hospice coordinated a video call with three sons scattered from Florida to Massachusetts to Colorado.

“Mom, this is Mark,” I began, anxious to thank her for everything. So I thanked her for pushing me to pursue my dreams. I thanked her for loving me, despite all our arguments. I thanked her for making the yummiest meatloaf any son has ever eaten. I was a mess.

In response, Mom raised her left arm, yanking at the BiPap mask that pumped oxygen into her lungs, stubbornly determined to give me a piece of her mind. But she could form no words, despite repeatedly trying.

I grinned through tears, because it was the most Bonnie Kiszla thing ever: wanting to get in the last word, right ’til the bitter end.

One day later, her breathing painfully labored, all that remained of the strongest woman I’ve ever known was a shell. Immediately before being transferred from a hospital room to a nearby hospice facility, Bonnie had been declared a COVID-19 risk, forcing my brother to don personal protective equipment in order to contact family throughout the country from mother’s bedside.

“Mom, I know you loved ‘Flicka’ as a kid. So as soon as you’re ready, get on your horse and ride out of here,” were the last words I’d ever tell my mother, as I ached to give one final hug from 1,500 miles away.

“Safe journeys. I love you, Mom.”

My brother slowly pulled the phone from her ear, offering a final look, before the video call faded to black.

It was time, time to go searching for my cross-country skis, found leaning against a wall in the garage.