Mom

Lou has always loved his mother very deeply. When I first met him, I remember he called her every sunday evening. I later learned he called her every sunday evening of his entire adult life, no matter where on this earth he was. Of course, he always loved to buy her lovely presents for Christmas...beautiful clothes that she would never buy herself, jewelry, tv sets, whatever...he loved to surprise her and I think he loved her admonishments, "Now Louis....". It seemed he could never do enough for her. She was a wonderful, dear, loving woman, first generation Greek, married at a young age to Lou's father, who was born in Greece. Lou's father left Greece to find work in America, and never went to school beyond something like 4th grade. I believe his mother graduated high school. They raised four children who all went to college and managed to do well enough in life, though the youngest, Kathy, passed away at a young age to breast cancer. But that is another story. Lou adored his mother, as I was saying. She passed away about 6 or 7 years ago. She had been living in a nursing home 3 hours from here. We didn't see her much while she was there, it was so upsetting to Lou and the boys, to all of us. Very upsetting. It was not what Lou wanted for his mom, but it happened. And there was no going back once it did. I digress, only to set the stage. When the brain tumor appeared, and Lou lost his memory, he lost his mom, too. Every single day, for at least 15 months, he would ask, repeatedly, "is my mom still with us" ? In the beginning, when we thought there might be some remote possibility that Lou might recover, or might actually know what was going on somewhere in there, we told him the truth. As the experts encouraged us to do. We would tell him that she was no longer with us. It upset him terribly. The crying would be uncontrollable at times, and when it was over, he would ask the question again. And again, and again. It never sunk in. Each time, he was hearing it for the first time, each time, a small heart attack. Sometimes, we would skirt the issue. Sometimes he would ask "how's mom", instead, which was much easier to answer, we could always say "oh she's fine", because we know she IS fine. Eventually though, we moved to telling him she was in a nursing home, a nice nursing home .... we couldn't go through the pain of telling him she was no longer with us. It has just dawned on me that he hasn't asked about her recently. But then, he isn't talking all that much either. But I don't think he HAS to ask anymore. NOW I think he DOES know the answer. He KNOWS she is no longer with us. Because he calls to her. He calls to her in his sleep. He calls to her when he awakens. And today, he saw her, in the room. He saw his mom. He said so. I know he did. One of the few comforting thoughts I have these days is knowing that she is waiting for him, and that he will, finally, know where she is.