Losing a loved one from COVID-19 without a final goodbye

The phone rang at 5:30 a.m.

When Dawn Zimmerman picked up, a nurse at Frederick Health and Rehabilitation Hospital was on the other line. Zimmerman’s mother, Brenda Drake, had died 10 minutes earlier.

Drake was one of Frederick County’s earliest deaths from COVID-19. She was 76.

Drake was a talented seamstress who moved to the United States from London, her daughter said.

“She did everything from — she’s made wedding dresses to curtains for people,” Zimmerman said.

She loved to paint, even wanting to teach painting at the nursing home where she lived. She was social. She loved parties. She was a strong woman, Zimmerman said.

And Drake was everyone’s grandmother, her daughter said. Everyone with kids had a Mee-maw in their lives because of Drake.

Read more | The Frederick News-Post