I love my mom.

On Mother’s Day, I typically express this sentiment by taking my mom out to brunch to show her in a small way what a blessing she is to my life. In 2020, thanks to COVID-19, I and her four other progeny must express our admiration from afar.

My mother, Jane Heidegger, lives in a senior living community in Eugene. She takes her meals in her room these days instead of breaking bread in the dining room with friends. Family and other visitors aren’t allowed at the facility.

Mom moved to the large and pleasant residence six months ago from the home where she lived with my dad for more than three decades. She moved to the senior community as a way to simplify her life. The writing, as they say, was on the wall. Mom stopped driving abruptly a couple of years back after having two accidents on the same day, one right after the other. She hung up her keys immediately, sold her car and figured out how to navigate by taxi and senior transportation. Going places now took more thought than simply jumping in the car and heading out. My dad died several years ago and Mom struggled to care for the large house, even with our occasional sibling work parties. Bad balance led to a walker. Falls brought two broken hips and a fractured ankle.

My mother doesn’t regret moving into the facility. She loves her new friends, not having to cook and her new volunteer job in the little library there. Although she isn’t wild about COVID-19-induced isolation, my octogenarian mom sees wisdom in self-distancing, especially for someone like her who is in a high-risk category. But she feels a little lonely and sort of bubble-wrapped. She doesn’t say she is climbing the walls, but it’s in her voice. Mom and her second-floor neighbors sometimes stand out in the hallway by their doors holding cups of coffee and chatting. Sometimes she steals outside with her walker and takes a loop around the block.

My mom doesn’t own a computer or a smart phone. My dad, a wiz on the computer, traded stocks online and set up all their bills to be paid automatically. My mom, ever the Luddite, reverted back to writing checks almost immediately after he died.

So we can’t Skype, email or text photos and videos of great-grandchildren to mom on this important day.

For some of you, however, social distancing celebrations are an option. Maybe you will share wine or a meal with your mom via Zoom or some other platform. One friend plans to decorate her car and participate in a Magical Mother’s Day Parade at her mother’s assisted living facility. Another will share a Mother’s Day meal and mimosas while seated 10 feet apart in a backyard.

I’m fumbling for a way to honor my own mom in a way she deserves. This is the woman, after all, who somehow didn’t have a nervous breakdown when teaching my youngest brother to drive. She stayed cool during one outing where Tom turned in front of an oncoming car. Both the other driver and Tom slammed on their brakes, and when they skidded to a stop, there was a foot of daylight between vehicles. Mom looked at my brother, whose blood had drained from his face, and spoke coolly.

“We won’t tell your father about this,” she said.

Mom also arbitrated frequent fights that broke out in the bedroom shared by me and my sister. She dealt with my brothers’ antics and injuries. One day, my then-7-year-old brother Scott and his friend David were building an underground fort. David hacked with a pitchfork while Scott brushed dirt away between chops. They had a rhythm going until they got out of sync. Scott got stabbed between his middle and ring fingers, which triggered yet another trip to the emergency room for Mom. Another came when my middle brother Dave, 10 years old at the time, sheared off a mailbox with his out-of-control go-cart and needed stitches on the back of his head. There were many more.

She sat through hundreds of concerts, ball games, water polo matches and track meets. She spent days at my home after the birth of our first child, soothing the baby and giving me something of a tutorial for how motherhood is done.

As the pandemic requires us to keep our distance from those in our lives, paradoxically we feel a deeper need for face-to-face contact and long, lingering hugs. I’m looking forward to hugging my mom, but on this Mother’s Day, my mom will receive a phone call, a card — and a column.

Mom, later on, when the pandemic madness is done, you will get the biggest hug ever. It will be epic, a hug above all hugs. I will try not to crush you.