This one's for you, Mom

There's no crying at rock shows.

So Lois Champoux stayed strong, and sat quietly smiling, every once in a while adjusting her earplugs, while her son Kelly stood on the small stage at the Yakima Sports Center a couple of Saturdays ago, playing to a packed dining room of friends and family.

"I'm so happy he was able to do this for his mother," longtime family friend Billie Young says between songs.

For the sweet and funny 73-year-old Lois, it was her first time -- and sadly, maybe the last -- to see Kelly play bass in his Seattle indie-rock band Italian Bombshell.

Sitting in her tidy living room a week before the show, Lois says she and husband Roger, who live in Yakima, have always wanted to get over to Seattle to see their son play.

"But that's just a very big trip for me now," she explains. "So he's coming over here."

Lois, a petite woman who's spent her life helping and comforting others -- her son calls her a saint -- was diagnosed a year ago with the terminal disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

According to the ALS Association, approximately 5,600 people in the U.S. are diagnosed each year with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

The most common form of the disease in the U.S. is "sporadic" ALS. However, about 5 percent to 10 percent of all ALS patients have the inherited "familial" form, which is what Lois has.

She's the sixth member of her family to get the disease. All died a year and a half after being diagnosed.

"She looks pretty good and her mind is pretty good," says Kelly, 33, who works in sales for Philips Medical Systems. "But she gets really tired and eating is hard.

"The sad thing is I'm in Seattle. ... I can definitely see a difference," he says.

But Lois, who beat ovarian cancer -- twice -- is stoic about her illness.

"There's not much I can do about it," she says matter-of-factly.

If Lois follows along the same line as her siblings, her time is limited, but nobody's actually given her a number, says daughter Lori Gibbons.

"Our hope was that she would be spared and not have to go through this," sighs Lori, 40, who works part time in Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital's childbirth program. "Last fall was really difficult. It was when reality set in."

And since then, priorities have shifted for the tight-knit family. Instead of waiting for someday, they have been making things happen.

"One of those things was getting my brother here to play for her," says Lori, who was able to set up the show through her co-worker, Kyleen Welch, who also does bookkeeping for the Sports Center.

For Lois, it was her first time in the downtown restaurant and weekend music venue. She looked forward to it as an "interesting adventure."

And although it was Kelly's big homecoming show, the night obviously belonged to Lois as a noticeably older crowd responded with a rousing, and loving, round of applause when Italian Bombshell's lead singer gave her a shout-out before beginning the band's set.

Afterwards, over the din of the crowd, Lois, still dry-eyed, simply says, "I loved it."

* Kim Nowacki can be reached at 577-7680 or knowacki@yakimaherald.com.

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