Darlene Link remembers the conversation as clear as a bell. It was Tuesday, April 7, and she was on the phone with her mom, 97-year-old Ethel Holst.
“I said, ‘Mom, it’s 75 degrees outside. It’s going to be a beautiful day,” said Darlene, who with her husband, Dave, resides east of Eldridge. “She said to me, ‘Well, it sounds like summer.’
“For me, it was such a peaceful homecoming for me, knowing that my mother knew us, loved us and cared for us until the end.”
Less than 12 hours later, Darlene received a phone call in the middle of the night telling her that her mom had passed away.
“We believe that she had a good life,” said Darlene. “She just fell asleep one night, and then they found her with no form of struggle.”
Ethel was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two years ago, and spent the last 18 months at Manor Care-Utica Ridge in Davenport. She didn’t suffer external tremors, but she was hit pretty hard with losing her ability to speak and swallow.
She was able to walk the halls daily, until the end, when she was just able to take a few steps once or twice a day.
Ever since Ethel entered Manor Care, Darlene and two other caregivers gave Ethel one-on-one assistance with all of her meals, and Darlene’s brother, Dean, visited every morning.
That routine changed on March 13 when the facility went on lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. After years of seeing her mother almost daily, Darlene’s visits were limited to phone calls.
“Right from the start, when it was shut down, I asked the staff if they could call me because Mother wasn’t able to punch all the numbers and dial me,” said Darlene. “I spoke to her every day. Some days I couldn’t always understand her, but the aide would help with that.
“We also managed a window meeting. For three weeks before she died, Dean and I would go to see her before she would eat. She was always dressed for the day.
“Yet, I can still say, that through all of this, when I got the phone call in the middle of the night, it was still like, ‘Oh no, I just talked to her yesterday. She was fine. I was running out of things to tell her about.’
“Yes it was still hard, but I did not want to be there to see my mother take her last breath, and when I talked to her on Tuesday, I did not think she was going to die the next day.”
If Ethel would have been on hospice, the family would have been able to go visit. However, if that were the case, they would have also had to stop speech therapy.
“It was a Catch-22, and I knew it was better to get speech therapy, and I was at peace with it all,” said Darlene. “Mother’s mind was still sharp. She liked company, and she was very intent upon her wishes and what she wanted.”
Because of that mindset, Ethel’s funeral arrangements were well in place, even before she moved to Manor Care.
“My mother had told me who she wanted for pallbearers, and gave me some thoughts on hymns,” said Darlene. “I had a service ready. I had the obituary drafted, and she had even read it.
“I took a different approach. We weren’t talking about death and dying. We were talking about living, and that would be my advice for other people going through this as well.”
Of course, because of the pandemic, there was no funeral.
“For us, we had to go to Plan B, and Jon Chambers (of McGinnis-Chambers) helped with everything. I had his cell number, and I already had a casket picked out.
“With Plan B, we had a viewing for our closest relatives, and rather than lots of flowers, I just picked up some pink roses. We had a tribute at the gravesite with Mother’s selected minister, Pat Halverson, the former pastor at Our Savior Presbyterian Church in Argo, and it all came together in short order.”
Ethel died on April 8. She was buried two days later on Good Friday. “I think we moved quicker because we wanted to be respectful of Easter,” said Darlene.
The family received an outpouring of phone calls, food and flowers and kind acts of sympathy, despite there being no visitation.
“We worked within the restrictions,” said Darlene. “We knew my mother’s wishes, and we tried to honor them. She was a mother of strong faith in the resurrection, and she got to live until she was 97.”
The brief funeral was held at Glendale Cemetery in LeClaire. There were less than 13 people in attendance, and no one wore masks.
Ethel’s two oldest sons, Alan and Dennis, live in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Because their states were on lockdown, they decided to come for the Celebration of Life service at a later date.
“We had our closest family members at the gravesite,” said Darlene. “We were all spread out. It was hard, but just the chance to have a little celebration of the living made it rewarding. We were celebrating her life, and there were plenty of tears.”
Afterward, the family honored Ethel’s memory in a unique way. “Mother always loved to have ice cream at Dairy Queen,” said Darlene, “and the way the timing was, the way it worked for everybody, we just decided that rather than having a meal, we would just go for ice cream and shared stories after that. That was pretty special.”
Darlene remembers her mother as one who always made sacrifices for the family, and also to the community. She never wanted any notoriety.
“I had no sisters, and I am so privileged to have gotten my mother as long as I have,” she said. “I cherish all these memories, and all these opportunities. We got to spend a lot of time together in the last three years, and I treasure the time I had with her.
“We were very fortunate with Mother, in that she lived a long and healthy life until age of 95. How can I be sobbing when I knew my mother loved the Lord?”