Aww man. This reminds me of a story Mr. Super Stella always tells of his mom. When her cancer had progressed to her brain, she was a shell of a person. He would always talk to her, and keep her up to date on her friends, and life - he knew she was in there paying attention.

One day To Kill A Mockingbird was on TV and he said to her "Ma, who's that? Cary Grant?" and a couple minutes went by and there was no response, so he just went about getting her comfortable and whatnot. As soon as he got up to walk into the other room he heard "Gregory Peck."

I get weepy thinking about how he re-tells it. His eyes always get misty.

TL;DR - The brain is magical place.