Drowning

My mother graduated from her long career as a school teacher the same year that I graduated college and started my own teaching career.  That was in 2010.  Eight years have gone by, and at some point during these eight years, my mother started to drown.

They say drowning is silent and it is, because I can’t tell you exactly when it started to happen, but it did.  She was drowning in too much free time and too many hours spent watching TV. She was drowning in anxiety.  She was drowning in old classroom materials and books, knick-knacks and trinkets, old video and cassette tapes, religious icons, and toiletries.   My mom right before her stroke was drowning in piles of dirty clothes and old food.  As I purged and cleaned her house out yesterday, I find my mom was drowning in boxes of sleeping pills and old expired prescriptions. My mom was drowning in her own depressions and every time I tried to hold my hand out to her and offer to help pull her out, she had refused, until refusing was no longer an option and she had no choice but to let me pull her back up to the surface. After a few sweaty hours of work, I have to leave my mom’s house for awhile. I have to leave behind the piles of things she bought in hopes that they’d bring her happiness.

They say grief hits in waves.  It does.  Some days I feel like I am drowning in our own collective sadness.

Saturday Demons

I actually wrote this last Saturday but didn't get around to doing anything with it until now...

It’s Saturday, late in the afternoon, and I’m on my way to the hospital to see my mother. The highway is empty and the sky cloudy and gray. I cruise down the freeway and make my way on to the highway exit. I can see the hospital in the distance. I stop at a red light and spot a man in a black t-shirt pan handling at the intersection up ahead. From where I’m sitting, I can’t read the sign he’s holding very well but I see the word PTSD written in heavy black marker. I pull a wad of ones out of my wallet and roll the window down. I tap the horn of my car lightly to get attention. He sees me and comes over.

“Thank you! Thank you!” he tells me as I hand him the cash. He stares at me through blood shot blue eyes. He leans in close to me, but I don’t back away.  His energy is not malicious, but I can feel the loneliness and need for human contact.  He leans in a little closer and in about thirty seconds he proceeds word vomit his life story to me.  Strangers and people in general have a tendency to do this to me, so I’m used to it.  There is so much information he’s trying to get out at once that I can’t quite comprehend everything he’s saying, but I piece together some of his story.  Something about the military, the war, the Middle East, something about prisoners and camps. Something about not sleeping anymore and a divorce. He smiles at Maya through the window. “How old?” He asks.

“She’s two,” I reply.

 “I have a six year old daughter,” he tells me. “I’m trying to do right by her I promise you I’m trying,” he tells me. I can feel this guy’s sadness and his grief, he makes my stomach ache a little bit.  I hold my hand out to him through my window, palm up. He takes it immediately and squeezes it, the way I wish my mother would when I hold a hand out to her.  He goes to pull his hand away but I hold it tighter. He stares at me in surprise. His grip loosens for a moment but then he holds on tighter too. I can see the haunted soldier in his blue eyes, I can glimpse a bit of his demons, and he knows I can too.

“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time” I tell him.  It’s a phrase I use with my preschoolers, but it also seems to be effective with adults.  I don’t know what else to say to him, so for a few seconds we don’t say anything at all.

 Then the light turns green.  I release my grip.  I stare at this dirty jeans and holy black Misfits t-shirt and wish I had more than a few wrinkly one dollar bills to give him.

“I have to go,” I tell him.  He makes the sign of the cross and waves at Maya.  I step on the accelerator and we are out of each other’s lives as fast as we entered.

The Weight of Emotions

My mother had a stroke recently, and the repercussions of this brain injury have rocked my world to the core, as our relationship has been turned upside down.  She is now the child.  I am now the parent.  Today is August 9^th and she is trying to argue with me that it’s Christmas Eve.  She can’t tell the nurse if  my students are big or small, but she tells her that she taught English as a Second Language for many years.  She’s shocked when I inform the nurse that she can speak Spanish.  “I can?” she asks me with a furrowed brow. Traumatic brain injuries are very tricky.

Seeing the deterioration of my mother has been an emotional trauma in itself.  If I could reflect how I feel on the inside on my outside, I’d look like I spent a few rounds in the ring with a prize winning boxing champ.  I feel like I got my emotional ass handed to me.  I spent the first two week hiding from my two-year-old every time I felt like crying.  I’d get her situated on the couch with a package of gummies and Netflix and then escape to the bathroom to fall apart for a few minutes, before sucking it up and going back out to pretend that everything is fine.  Everything is not fine.  Maybe it simply took time to come to that conclusion, but my attitude towards showing my emotions around my young daughter has definitely changed.

Two weeks ago I would have said the I just wanted her to see me be strong, to know that everything is okay, and that the world isn’t going to fall apart.  You want to know what I’ve learned in two weeks?  That yes, your world can fall apart, but at a rate in which you can pick up the pieces and put them back together again.  I’m her mom, and even though I’m recovering from my own trauma, I haven’t let her world fall apart. 

Emotions are a form of energy.  They are energy in motion, and they are not meant to stay stuck in us.  We have to acknowledge their presence, receive the message they are trying to deliver, feel the message, and then let it go.  So now, when I feel like crying, I do.  When she stares at me with toddler concern, I tell her the truth.  “Mommy feels sad right now, can I have a hug?” Sometimes she obliges and gives me a tender hug, and sometimes she seems unconcerned and indifferent to my sadness.  That’s okay, if she’s content then the kid is doing okay, and that's what matters most to me.  Don’t hide your emotions from your children.  Show them that you can be strong and vulnerable all at the same time.  They love you unconditionally and to them, you are the world, and sometimes the world can be a sad place to be in, but we all have the power to simply get through it.

Code Blue

August 2018

I’m sitting by my mother’s bedside when a voice breaks out through the hospital speakers and says.

                “Code Blue, Room 511…Code Blue.” I've never heard them announce a Code Blue before.  We are on the third floor, my eyes travel upwards towards the ceiling.  I don’t know what Code Blue means, but I can imagine it means someone has suddenly fallen close to death.  My mom stares at me, and then she mimics me, and she too stares at the ceiling.  My toddler Maya then copies both of us and throws he head back, staring intently at the ceiling tiles.  I suddenly realize I am probably the only one who cognitively understands what a Code Blue might mean.  I wonder if someone two floor up is about to die.  I wonder if they’re scared, or if they’re ready.  My daughter hands my mother a fake, plastic cell phone and it takes a few tries, but she manages to open it and pretends to hold it to her ear.  Maya giggles.  We sit in silence for a few minutes and then the voice on the speaker returns and says, “Code Blue canceled.”  I let out a sigh of relief. 

                My mother then suddenly looks at me wide-eyed.  She does it a lot, it’s a new mannerism I’m still getting used to.  She asks me a question.  It takes three tries before I understand. 

“You want your purse I ask?”  She nods her head, and I go to the closet and then bring it to her.  I open it up and set it on her lap.  She just stares at it.  Long seconds tick by.  “What are you looking for?” I ask gently.  “Your wallet?”  She nods at me with her wide-eyed stare again.  I pull out her wallet and then take her driver’s license from the bill fold.  “You want to look at this?”  I ask holding it out to her.  She glances it and then pushes my hand away.

“No!” she says sharply.  I nod and put it away.  I hand her the wallet and she just stares.  I watch her eyes move back and forth very quickly.  I know her brain is trying to retrieve information, it’s trying to re-route itself past damaged tissue.  My heart hurts a little watching her, watching her struggle, watching her try to remember things she can’t.  Eventually I put the purse away, and I ask my mom if she is sleeping okay at night.

“Yeah, I sleep great with the dogs,” she tells me.  I nod and smile.  She’s talking about her dogs who are staying currently at my sister’s house.  My mom stares at me for a long moment.  Sometimes it’s like she’s seeing me for the first time, and I wish I could know what she’s thinking.  Her eyes widen, and she suddenly turns her head away from me, she even skootches a little bit away.  I reach my hand out and rest it on her shoulder, “Love you ma,” I whisper.  She doesn’t respond.