Savannah Hackler

On May 11th, my mom told me she was having problems breathing so I took her to the hospital before I went to work. From the hospital, she wrote and told me she was positive for COVID-19 and the hospital staff wanted to put her on a ventilator because her oxygen was 55%. She was already diagnosed with COPD and pneumonia. The staff told me her chest x-rays did not look good. They put her on a ventilator the next day, May 12th. Her oxygen continued to drop over the next few days until she was brain dead. Before we could make the decision to take her off life support, she went into cardiac arrest. My family and I arrived to the hospital just in time to say goodbye and we were there when she passed on May 16th.

My mom was my best friend for 28 years. We rarely lived apart because I couldn’t go without seeing or worrying about her. She was disabled since she was 21 years old, which was when she got t-boned by another car. They had to LifeStar her to the hospital and put a steel plate in her back. I had a rough start in life, but she never gave up on me. She helped me raise all 3 of my girls, ages 13, 9, and 7. Then, at 40, she had my little brother, Cristian, who is also 9. She also raised my 25 year old mentally handicapped cousin, who is mentally about 10-12 years old, because his biological mother didn’t want him. My mother wouldn’t let him go up for adoption and took him in.

My mom always helped me to pay the bills and support the household and now with her gone, it’s like I went from 3 kids to 5 overnight as well as having taken on all of the expenses of the kids and household. She had no insurance of any kind and we barely managed to save up enough to get her ashes.

Being so out of the blue and unexpected just kind of set a lot of things back. For those that knew her, she was the kindest woman with the sweetest heart, who would go out of her way to help anyone. That’s what everyone remembers...how sweet and kind she was.

It was all so unexpected and so shocking. A thousand moments you take for granted because you think there will be a thousand more. I often tell people, I had my last day with my momma and didn’t even know it. Go home and hug your loved ones, hold their hands, tell them how much you love them because it can really happen just that quick.