There was a period where Mom would look for her babies.   They had to be in the house someplace.  After we had visited with a family gathering it was much worse for a few days.  I would stay longer after the bigger gathering had left to ease the transition.

There was a period where Mom was looking for her mother and father.  She was so small and sad and lost we all wanted to jar her back to reality but that only added more grief.  I asked her once how old she was when this sadness came upon her and she said, “I don’t know.  Maybe three?”  That gave me the window to understanding what I needed to say.  From then on Mom and Dad would be home soon.  On a trip. At the store.  Back in a few hours or a few days and would bring her favorite ice cream.  Whatever would buy me a smile.  Telling the truth was not all that important.

But sometimes the truth is important.

Dad entered a nursing home a few months before he passed and Mom would visit him there.  She did not always remember who he was as her image of her husband was of a much younger man.  Sometimes she would have fairly elaborate suggestions of other things to do as visiting was not that much fun.  We laughed at her ingenuity.

After he passed Mom and I sat with him for an hour.  I did not know what she understood but felt I needed to offer her the opportunity to say goodbye at the ending of a long marriage.  We sat at the foot of his bed and she would peek around my shoulder at this man, now passed that had once been her husband.  “Is he really gone?” “Ya, Mom he is really gone.”, “Oh.”, “Is he really gone?”,  “Ya.”,  “Oh”.

Months later we drove into the carport after an outing.  I had just shut off the engine and we were still sitting in the car. Mom burst into a long string of random words and at the very end, crystal clear, “I still miss him you know!”  “ Ya, Mom.  We all still miss him.”  Not hiding the truth was the right thing to do.