The text message from a friend arrived at 5:11 a.m. on Monday.

My Mom died yesterday. I am so sad. Love to you both.”

My friend and I were classmates in the 2nd grade at Kahala Elementary School the year the school first opened its doors. We went up through sixth grade together, then went our separate ways to different high schools, but reconnected in 2015 (along with other classmates) when Kahala School celebrated its 60th birthday, and she returned for her 50th high school reunion.

Since we reconnected, she has been a frequent visitor to Hawaii from her home base in Denver, flying into town every 6-8 weeks to visit her mother at the Kahala Nui retirement community. She’s joined us on our early morning walks on Kahala beach, and shared many late afternoon glasses of wine on our back deck, several times with others who can trace back to the same 2nd grade class.

Her visits were stopped by the coronavirus, the suspension of most air travel, and the stay-at-home protocol we were all asked to follow. Kahala Nui locked down. No visitors allowed. That was an smart move that appears to have avoided the spread of COVID-19 among the residents, but tough on residents and their families.

She kept in touch with her mother by phone, and Facetime calls, but of course it’s not the same. And then, less than two weeks ago, an infection put her mom in the hospital. My friend still wasn’t too worried. She knew her that her mom was a strong woman, even though over 90.

One of those things. She was strong and ready to live to a hundred. And then, suddenly, she wasn’t.

My friend knows her mother was asking for her during those final days. But even if she somehow managed to get flights to Hawaii, she would have been subject to the 14-day quarantine, and likely would not have been allowed into the hospital anyway. There don’t appear to be any bereavement exceptions built into the current rules.

So she was more than 3,000 miles away and couldn’t do anything other than watch from a distance and wait for the news that finally came on Sunday.

“It was hard not to be there,” she commented.

And what now? She has no way to know when it will be possible to get back to Hawaii to deal with all the bureaucracy of death.

These are such emotionally draining moments under the best of circumstances. And these are far from the best circumstances.