Mama is showing me the latest letter from my brother, the way she always does. As she reads it a second or maybe third time, it quivers in her hand. Post-stroke palsy.
I can see Carbrook Manor personnel in pastel scrub suits buzzing around in the background. There is the occasional flash of a white lab coat. Residents lean on aluminum walkers or slump in wheelchairs.
Since COVID arrived, these Zoom sessions are the only means of face-to-face interaction for us: Mama in Florida, me in Louisville.
“Your brother wrote to me again,” Mama says, pride and concern in her tone. “He wrote from Fala… Falu…”
“Fallujah,” I say for her.
“Why is he still there?” she asks. “The TV says all our boys came home from Iraq.”
“He is part of the peacekeeping group,” I remind her.
“I want him to come home,” she says, a little peevish now. I am losing her. “He should be here for Christmas.”
I do not remind her that Christmas was three weeks ago.
Her mood shifts, and she looks away from the screen. “I don’t think I have much time left, and sometimes I can’t remember his face.”
“Oh, Mama, you’ll never forget Adam’s face.”
She pauses, looks at the letter, and then says, “Your brother wrote to me again. He wrote from Faloo… Fallojj…”
“Fallujah, Mama,” I say gently.
“Why is he still there?”
After 20 minutes and another read-through of the letter, the Zoom session ends, and we blow kisses to each other.
I exit Zoom, open a Word document and begin typing:
“Dear Mama, it is 105 degrees in Fallujah today, and my squad and I just got back from patrol.”
John E. Campbell, Lexington