On 2/13/2020 my husband had a stroke. No one knew the world would shut down a few weeks later, and with him in a coma and I not being able to visit … it was unbearable. Mom said she’d get me through all of it if it was the last thing she did. Four months later, John came home. I thought our little world could get back to normal. The last person we thought who would get it was mom; she was homebound and has medical visits at home. At the time, we lived in Delaware, and decided to stay secluded for Thanksgiving and Christmas … “there’s always next year.”

On January 5th in the afternoon, I got a IM from my brother that mom was going to the ER — nothing new, she had medical problems and sometimes the home visit nurse would say hospital was needed. A couple hours later, I got a message from my sister-in-law: “So your mom is Covid positive. Jason (my brother) hasn’t really been able to talk to anyone, but looking at her blood work it looks like she has tested positive for sepsis. She also has another UTI finding nitrates, proteins and blood in her urine. She has had one chest x-ray that shows signs of infectious/inflammatory disease mainly on her left. They are doing another one at 5:30. They have given her steroids to open up her lungs and started her on remdesivir with 100% oxygen. Jason is scared out of his mind. He keeps saying he is going to lose her. She isn’t responding to the remdesivir or the convalescent plasma. I just spoke with the doctor. They don’t think she will make it through the night. If you guys want to see her you would have to make the decision to take her off the breathing machine and put her on comfort care first. Then they would allow visitors.”

My reply: “As much as I’d like to, I just think we better stay home. I’m assuming the same type of arrangement are made for mom as was dad (cremation), and if so, could someone just take a picture of her for me. Between John (my husband) and my health issues(lupus), I just can’t risk us having problems arise after everything we dealt with last year. As long as she’s comfortable and in no pain I can live with that.”

Within eight hours, exactly 30 months to the day our dad passed away unexpectedly in the hospital on what was supposed to be his discharge date, I woke up out of a dead sleep at 3:23 am and this was waiting: “She’s with your dad now, resting easy. We just made it back to the hospital so Jason can see her. She passed a little after 2am.”

Annetta “Chris” Christine Martin (nee Baldwin) of Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania and formerly of Waverly, Maryland unexpectedly passed away on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. She was the beloved wife of the late Charles Lee Martin whom she was married to for 45 years before his sudden passing in 2018; cherished mother of Brandee L. Holmes and her husband John, Jason R. Martin and his wife Amanda, and Stacie L. Spahr and her husband Kenneth; proud grandmother of Rebecca Plantholt, John David Holmes, Cameron Martin, Maddisyn Pickett and Kayleigh Pickett; great-grandmother of Isabella Grace and Ian George; treasured sister of Dale Baldwin and Joseph Baldwin; step daughter of Pat Baldwin. Chris also leaves behind her cherished furbaby, Jaxson and many other extended relatives and dear friends.