Polish President's Mother Finally Told of Fatal Crash
Lech Kaczynski's mother was considered too ill to take the news earlier.
WARSAW, May 26, 2010— -- When the plane carrying many of the highest ranking members of the Polish government crashed six weeks ago, the nation went into shock, but one woman knew nothing of the tragedy -- the president's mother.
Jadwiga Kaczynska, 83, was not told about the death of her son and daughter-in-law because her doctors feared she was too frail to take the news -- until Tuesday.
So today, Polish Mother's Day, a day when streets are filled with with sons and daughters of all ages carrying flowers and presents to their moms, Kaczynska was coming to grips with the news that her son, President Lech Kaczynski, and his wife Maria had died six weeks before.
Kaczynska is critically ill. She has been in hospital for the past three months with cardiological and pulmonary problems, and spent most of the time under a respirator.
In the weeks before his fatal air crash, the president canceled foreign trips and domestic appointments to be at her bedside. His countrymen understood and sympathized.
Investigators into the accident say that the last call on his satellite phone before the crash near Smolensk, Russia, on April 10, was to his mother's doctor.
Adam Bielan, a close friend of the late President told reporters two weeks after the crash, "Jadwiga keeps asking where Lech is."
Doctors decreed she was too frail to take the news when it happened. Until Mother's Day she was one of the very few in Poland oblivious of her son's death.
But just days before the holiday her condition improved.
The president's almost identical twin brother, Jaroslaw, 60, head of Poland's Law and Justice Party and now running for president himself, broke the news to their mother.
"He felt he just had to do it before Mother's Day, in spite of medical reasons. How else could he visit his mom on Mother's Day alone, if for decades her beloved twins always visited their mom together? How long could the truth be concealed?" a spokesperson for Jaroslaw Kaczynski told ABC News.
According to Elzbieta Jakubiak, head of Jaroslaw Kaczynski's presidential campaign, the news came as a huge blow.
