Communists Stole the Family Car
"Hi, mom. It's me."
"Oh, hi! I got your card! Thanks! I'm looking at it right now here by
the phone on the desk. I already took it next door to show the
neighbors. I'm sorry I didn't send you one. I forgot."
Hmmm, I thought. I wonder what this is about. My birthday is in October
and it is now July.
"Mom, why would you send me a card? It was YOUR birthday, not mine," I
said.
"Birthday? Ooooooh. I thought it was Christmas," she said.
Ah, Christmas in July, I thought. Oh well, it could be worse.
"That's ok. I'm glad you liked the card," I said.
When October rolled around I called her on MY birthday:
"Hi, it's me. Guess what?"
"What?"
"It's my birthday."
"Oooh, I'm sorry," she muttered softly. "I forgot. So, Happy Birthday!
How old are you?"
We talked for a minute or two and then in a whisper she said, "Someone
stole the car."
"What?" I replied.
"Someone stole the car," she repeated. "But don't tell anyone. It's not
safe here anymore. They might be listening in on us."
"Who stole the car?" I asked. "Did you report it to the police?"
"I can't say. It's too dangerous to talk about it. All I can say is
they weren't Americans."
"What? So who were they?" I asked.
There was a short silence.
"I think they were Communists, but don't tell anyone. It's not safe
around here anymore," she offered reluctantly.
"OK, mom, I won't tell," I said, thinking that this must certainly be
one of the lesser-known legacies of the Cold War.
I called the neighbor later that day and told him about the car. He
laughed about the Communists and told me that the car was in the garage
exactly where it had always been. He had taken the keys away from her
because she had already been in two small fender-bender accidents and
shouldn't be driving. He also told me that he had found her passed out
on the floor a couple of times in an insulin coma. With her memory the
way it was, he guessed she couldn't remember to take her medicine and
give herself the injections properly.
I wondered why I had not been told about any of this, but he probably
thought I didn't care. After all, I was her only child and I had left
the country to avoid her, they thought, so why should I be kept
informed?
We discussed what to do and decided to put mom in a nursing home not
far away, at least for the next few weeks while he was on vacation.
After he returned, we could decide what to do.
Then a minor miracle took place.
After only a short time in the home, she no longer needed insulin. She
no longer needed most of the pills she had been taking for years. She
still had health problems, but nothing all that out of the ordinary for
her age and considering her previous medical history. Her memory and
thinking did not improve, but at least she wouldn't die on the kitchen
floor.
I was astounded. After all these years of endless trips to the doctor,
fear of being more than a few minutes away from a hospital, fatigue,
dry-eye syndrome caused by too many pills for too many years, after all
of that, none of it was necessary.
All she really needed was to be around other people, to be included, to
have someone pay attention to her. At least that's the way it looked.
Who knows?
That was the last home she ever had. It was the home she needed at the
time. We'll never know for sure, but it might even have been the best
home she ever had. It's not unthinkable. Life had always been a
terrible struggle for her. She died quietly one year later around
Thanksgiving.
And that's what happened when the Communists stole the family car.
