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.