Friday, Sept. 25 was a lovely day—79 degrees with a gentle breeze, sunny, without a cloud in the sky. But for Jerry Krogmeier it was an extra-beautiful day because he was finally going home. He hadn’t seen his wife, Kim, of almost 45 years in over five months, except through the glass windows of Parkview Manor in Wellman, where he spent the last three months of his recovery from COVID-19.

When Jerry arrived at Parkview, he couldn’t stand or walk and could barely speak, only managing to whisper a word or two at a time with what little strength he could muster. He tested positive for the virus on April 10 and quickly became seriously ill. He was in a coma for six weeks, spent 34 days on a ventilator in the Veterans Administration hospital in Iowa City, then was transferred to a specialty hospital before eventually landing at Parkview.

Jerry doesn’t remember a lot of this time period, but the fear, worry, and anxiety ring clear in Kim’s mind.

“That first week, when my phone rang, I was so scared to answer it,” Kim said. “We went from talking to him on a Saturday and they told me it’d probably be about two weeks and then I could come get him… then they called me and said, ‘We put him on a ventilator. You need to be prepared.’ Things were bad, really bad.”

When Jerry was in a coma and breathing only with the assistance of a ventilator, Kim called him three times a day. The doctors would hold the phone near him and tell her if his face twitched or his fingers moved. Jerry said he remembers dreaming about her.

“They didn’t think I’d make it. That’s what they told my wife,” Jerry said. But then he looked around at the trees in front of Parkview and lifted his face slightly to the sun for the first time in months. “Yeah, they said, at first, that I might not be alive in the morning. But here I am.”

Jerry worked as a truck driver for 40 years and is an avid car collector, so when Kim drove from their home in Donnellson, Iowa, to pick him up, she came in their 1959 Chevy Apache, painted candy-apple red and shining in the sunlight.

The truck’s name is Rizzo. Jerry restored it for Kim over a period of several years. He said it always reminds him of his wife.

When Jerry saw the hot rod pull into the Parkview parking lot, his face unleashed into a wide smile. Kim got out and stood behind Jerry, putting a hand on his shoulder before leaning down to hug him for the first time since April.

“This feels good,” she said. “This feels right.”

Both Jerry and Kim said they were impressed with all the medical staff who treated him during his recovery, first at the VA hospital, and then at Parkview.

“The care I got here was outstanding,” Jerry said. “I had several of the ladies, when I couldn’t walk or do anything like that, they would bring me my food. They treated me like family. They treated me with kindness.”

As Jerry sat in the courtyard, preparing to go home, groups of Parkview staff filtered by, everyone saying goodbye to a patient they had gotten to know over the past three months.

“He’s had one long road,” said nurse Kim Hertel. “When he first came to us, I don’t think we understood yet what [COVID-19] can do to you… It’s absolutely fantastic to see something like this happen because so much bad can come out of this. It’s nice to see something good, something positive.”

For the Parkview staff, Jerry’s discharge is bitter sweet — they grew to love his kindness and his company, and they will miss him, but they all agreed that it was good to see him go home at last. They gathered around as he stepped into the sleek metallic car and told him to wave. They clapped as he pulled away.

Kim said she plans to work a few more years before retiring. They hope to build a house on Jerry’s family’s land to house Rizzo and their other two restored cars. They want to go to Hawaii. But the main thing, Kim said, is that they want to be together.

“We’ve got to enjoy life,” she said. “That’s what this has opened my eyes to. It feels like a second chance.”