To the editor:

My 94-year-old mother lives in a skilled nursing facility in Connecticut. As of May 5, 20 of the 58 residents tested positive for COVID-19. Five of those 20 have died. She’s trapped on the Titanic; adjacent staterooms are filling up with the sea water. Will she be next? “I am stuck here,” she said to me on the phone last week. “When are you coming?”

How I would love to say, “I will be there right away, Mom!” I could comfort her, tell her I love her.

I won’t be seeing her anytime soon. This pandemic is so very real. The contagion of this disease means that even beloved sons are barred from visiting their mothers.

Mom has dementia. I can explain none of this to her.

Though not with Mom on Mother’s Day, I will be thinking of her. I will be thinking about all the moms living in nursing homes — powerless, so defenseless against this pitiless virus.

On Wednesday, the President said, “We have to get our country open again” and it’s time to “move on.”

And I want to say to the president, we must call a time out. We need time to grieve and mourn all the mothers languishing in nursing homes, unhugged, unheld.

It hurts me to think about all that Mom has given me, and I cannot even give her a hug.

Peter Luckey,

Lawrence