The Renauds’ pastor showed up at their home within an hour of them finding their 14-year-old daughter, Jadzia, unresponsive in her bed.

When he walked through the front door, Yoli Renaud, Jadzia’s mother, ran into his arms, weeping.

“I prayed and prayed, and she didn’t come back,” she cried.

The Renauds, of Ferguson, Missouri, had been following pandemic safety protocol for months, wearing masks and keeping a distance from others. But everything changed when Jadzia died.

Suddenly, their house was filled with first responders, many of whom were not wearing masks. And as people learned of Jadzia’s death, they wanted to hug the grieving family members. The Renauds needed the comfort of the warm and genuine embraces of people who cared for them.

But during a pandemic, hugs can be dangerous.

Jadzia had been diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan syndrome when she was a baby, but she had been taking medicine that controlled her symptoms and risks. During her freshman year of high school, she was active in the school’s theater program and mock trial team. She was looking forward to her quinceanera on Aug. 24. She had been laughing with her family the night before she went to bed for the last time.

In their shock, her parents, Josh and Yoli, also had to figure out how to bury their daughter without endangering anyone wanting to mourn with them.

“If it had been a few weeks earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to do the services,” Josh said. Every decision weighed on them. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt or sick because we were doing this.”

No one from Yoli’s family in Bolivia could travel to the United States for the funeral, despite desperately wanting to say their farewells.

Death stalked us this spring and summer. A study published last month in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the number of deaths in the United States due to any cause increased by approximately 122,000 from March 1 to May 30. The increase is 28% higher than the reported number of COVID-19 deaths.

During this time of “excess deaths,” as described by the scientists, I kept hearing news of people dying. Some felt removed -- parents of people I had known growing up, but no longer stayed in touch with, or distant relatives.

But so many others hit closer -- an elderly neighbor, a child’s teacher, a co-worker’s daughter, a friend’s brother, my college best friend’s in-laws. It was hard to see through the cloud of shock and sadness each personal news alert brought.

There was a week in June when I attended five funerals in the space of three days. One was Jadzia’s. Her father and I have worked together at the Post-Dispatch for years.

I arrived a few minutes before the visitation began at the family’s church. I wore a mask and considered keeping my hands in my pockets to avoid instinctively hugging Josh and Yoli.

But when I saw them standing next to her casket, their three beautiful younger children lined up next to them, I felt grief tighten my chest.

I wrapped my arms around Yoli and my tears fell on my mask.

How else does one mother respond to another who just lost her baby?

I left before the church started to fill with mourners, and watched the service remotely.

Josh shared a story at the service about Jadzia spotting swamp milkweed plants for sale at the farmers market a few years ago. She convinced her mom to buy some because she knew they attracted monarch butterflies. The next summer, monarchs began to arrive; Yoli and the kids raised dozens of them from caterpillars found on the plants. Once, Jazdia found a dying butterfly with a broken wing. She was devastated. Her mother helped her bury the butterfly in front of the milkweeds.

Yoli told Jadzia a Bible verse to comfort her.

If not for the pandemic, Jadzia’s abuelita would have been there to bury her granddaughter and comfort her daughter. Her paternal great-grandmother would have been there. The Renauds would have taken a trip to be with their family in Texas. People would have filled their home to comfort them.

Instead, they read cards sent in the mail and tributes posted on social media. They took comfort in phone calls, limited visits and meals dropped off at their door.

Recently, Josh posted an update on Facebook at the one-month anniversary of his daughter’s death.

“We wish the circumstances were different: that there was no coronavirus threat, that we could welcome people into our home to reminisce and (for) fellowship. But please know that we have been deeply blessed by each act of kindness,” he wrote.

“We feel your love and support despite the distance.”

More than 23 million parents are backed into a corner right now.

That’s how many parents the Brookings Institution estimates rely on school and child care programs while they go to work to be able to provide for their families. Their ability to work is essential to our country’s economic recovery.

But while our government will scramble to bail out airlines and banks and car manufacturers, you don’t hear the same kind of urgency around a child care bailout during this pandemic. No one has a good answer for what working parents required to return to their offices are supposed to do if it’s not safe for schools to reopen in person. There are children too young to stay at home alone whose parents may not have access to or cannot afford child care.

And in places where the coronavirus is surging, the answer is not to simply reopen schools -- putting teachers, staff and parents at risk.

The St. Louis Public Schools are considering learning centers where children would be supervised while receiving online lessons. But for parents like Mia Daugherty, a single mom in St. Louis, the fear of exposure to the virus means she will be keeping her 5-year-old daughter, Zara, at home for kindergarten.

“She’s not going to school until COVID numbers look a lot better than how they look now,” Daugherty said. “It doesn’t make sense to put my child’s life at risk, and the teachers, administrators and staff at risk. A lot of kids are asymptomatic, and I’m not willing to gamble on anyone’s life.”

Daugherty, who is Black, knows the health risks from COVID-19 are far greater for her community. She’s not sure how she will manage home-schooling her daughter while working full-time from home.

Zara had been doing exceptionally well before preschool ended in March and had been accepted into a gifted magnet school for the fall.

“It was much more difficult for (Zara) to focus on the last two months of work. I know her skills and progress are not where they could have been,” Daugherty said. She knows that virtual learning, especially for kindergartners, who learn best through play, is not the same as being in a classroom with peers and teachers. Zara was reading and writing on a first-grade level in pre-K, and now her mom is seeing a little bit of a decline in those skills.

“My plate is already so full,” she said. “I’m juggling multiple things, so I’m already stretching myself so thin. I take breaks to give her meals, but I haven’t had time to spend with her. This is what I have to do to survive, and in order for us to be able to live.”

She knows there are parents in even more dire circumstances -- those who don’t have a job and are facing eviction and financial ruin and those with children with disabilities who need special services. That’s not to mention the millions of children who rely on schools for meals and refuge from unsafe homes.

For now, Daugherty can’t even think about how she will balance the educational, social and emotional needs of her young daughter with a full-time job that demands her attention all day.

“I honestly can’t even cross that bridge of how I will home-school her ... It might send me into a panic attack,” she said.

Where is the sense of urgency for Zara and kids like her?

Where is the help for working parents who are critical to our economy?

For a country that has sidelined the needs of families for so long, this crisis has turned the cracks in our society into craters.

Politicians have ignored the desperation of 23 million parents at their own peril.

Now, it’s time for a reckoning.

On the bitterly divisive issue of returning to school, there’s one thing every parent can agree on: There are no good options. Every choice comes at a cost.

That’s where the agreement ends.

As schools announce their plans for how they will educate students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reactions are as varied as families’ unique circumstances. Some are committed to having their children return to in-person instruction in school buildings, while others can’t imagine that happening safely.

In the Rockwood School District in suburban St. Louis, some parents are petitioning and protesting for more in-person instruction options, while others across the region are forming small pods to hire private tutors and teachers. Some families are opting out, choosing their own homeschool plans over a virtual school option.

But the voices of educators, who will be on the front lines of possible virus exposure in school buildings, are just as important to this debate as those of parents.

Mindy Grossman, a middle school guidance counselor in the St. Louis area, recently posted her frustrations online, and she agreed to share her post as it was written:

“The past two days since the school announcement was made have been a roller coaster of emotions. It has only been made worse by the comments on social media.

“I have been an educator for 30 years. During that time I have endured comments from friends, such as ‘But you get the whole summer off’ or ‘Don’t you just sit in your office and drink coffee?’

“I have bitten my tongue when the principal says the parent is right. I have spent thousands of dollars to buy your kid’s shoes, pay for his field trip, treat him to the snack bar because he is crying that he forgot his money and bought birthday treats for him to share with the class because you were too busy and forgot. ...

“I have held your crying kid while my own is waiting in the nurse’s office for me at their school. I have talked you off the ledge when you wanted to cuss out the teacher for treating your kid unfairly.

“I have listened while you tell me how to do my job even though I have never told you how to do yours! Ask my family -- I have calls and emails at night, on weekends and all summer long. I have missed my kids’ school events so that I could be there for your kids.

“And the list goes on.

“I am not saying this for thanks or for recognition. If you know me, you know I am not looking for that. I do these things because I believe in the work I have done each and every day for the past 30 years. But the response to the whole school fiasco has made me angry. Does this suck for everyone? Yes! Is there an easy answer to this? Absolutely not! But what hurts and angers me the most is that, after all I have given to you and your family through these years, during a crisis, you feel like your needs are more important than mine.

“And that, to me, shows the ultimate disrespect.”

Emotions are running high for parents who feel backed into making terrible decisions about their children’s education. But Grossman’s words ought to remind us of the risks we are asking educators to take by returning to their classrooms. A recent study found that 1 in 4 teachers, or about 1.47 million people nationwide, have a condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness from coronavirus.

Teachers chose their profession knowing that it demands sacrifices. But those sacrifices should not include risking their lives and health during a pandemic.

Neither the pandemic nor the government’s bungled response is the fault of educators.

They shouldn’t be expected to pay the price.