The Little Boy, our Adorable Little Boy

I followed her story, I was part of it

When my Mom had dementia, it was all very difficult. But something new happened. Maria, one of the caregivers, told me that every time my Mom was ready to sleep , she made a little bundle with her blouse and put it in her corner, patting it like a baby. I was moved, I always knew that the babies were her joy. How tender she was to a little baby and so, she must have been like that to us.

I had heard of cases of old women who were already demented, playing with dolls. So, I had the idea of buying a doll for my mother. I commented with the doctor and he approved. In a store in town I looked for the most beautiful doll and sometimes I find myself asking if I didn't choose it for myself!

At first she didn’t like the doll, she found it strange. But the doll was running around there. Sometimes my Mom would pick it up, saying that it was cute and looked at it with tenderness. Some days after, my Mom woke up and said: “Where is my boy?” From that day on his boy was the reason of her life. She made up a story that the boy’s mother didn’t want him anymore and asked her to raise him. I attribute to the boy the tenderness that she managed to rescue in her life.

I felt sorry for my mother for always being so autonomous and then having to submit herself to other people who took care of her. But we always pretended that she was in charge. We always did the possible and impossible to make her happy. But the “boy” came for that. Nothing could make her happier than her little boy. He was the joy of her home.

Why did we call him a boy? Why didn’t we give him a name? Just because that’s what she called him. There was never a name. When someone asked her the boy’s name she looked at us confused as if trying to escape the answer. This led me to believe that somehow she knew the boy was not real, but necessary to her fantasy. However, her relationship with the boy was as if he were real. When she came back from her bath and saw him sitting on the couch, she smiled and picked him up saying: “little son, why are you sad? Mom is here.”

Sometimes she made a gesture that moved us a lot: she stuck her forehead to his, closed her eyes and savored that intimacy as if he were, in fact, a real boy. We got used to the boy, he was part of our lives. There was a drawer just for his clothes. The caregivers washed this face and put a baby smell on him. When we were talking loudly, she warned us to be careful not to wake him.

We also got used to people who were shocked when saw my Mom with the boy. They did not understand that my mother was sick and that little doll was important for her affection. This made me reflect on the need to include classes and lectures on compassion, humanity and sensitivity in nursing courses. The need to see people through the eyes of the soul.

My mother died ten years ago. I know that the little boy brought the tenderness that my Mom needed for her life. I witnessed the change in her behaviour before and after the doll. I followed her story, I was part of it. Only I know where the pain hurt me.