Longtime Chicago Anchor Kathy Brock lost her mom to the coronavirus and her Dad is in ICU.

Brock anchored the news at WLS, until retiring back in 2018.

“It took a pandemic to separate them,” Brock said of her parents that were married for over 65 years. Carol Brock died April 5 from COVID-19. Her husband is still waging his own battle with the coronavirus and remained in an intensive care unit.

Carol Brock was recovering in a rehab center for a prior illness and fell in her room and was taken to a hospital. She’d already been tested for the coronavirus and while the results weren’t in yet, the admitting doctors told the family they were sure she had COVID-19.

Late that night, Kathy Brock said, a doctor called the family and delivered the news that her mother, who already had asthma and COPD, was not a candidate for a ventilator. She and her siblings could not visit their mother in person but had a chance to see her on a FaceTime call in the hospital. She was clearly short of breath. “We tried to soothe her, tell her she was being well taken care of, that we were there,” Brock said. “But it was so sterile, the least personal way possible to connect with someone who was struggling, someone you love. “My final visual image of mom:

She was in ICU isolation as a nurse administered medication. Mom took the nurse’s hand and wouldn’t let go. I hope she thought that hand was mine as I told her I loved her,” Brock said.

Carol Brock died at 12:45 a.m. on April 5.

Frank Brock has not yet been told.

H/T Chicago Tribune