Sunny Morning

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were running errands on a sunny Sunday morning. I wanted to prepare for the upcoming visit of my younger nephew. He is now ten years old. My boyfriend was driving. We listened to the radio. I smiled as I glanced at his handsome profile. My boyfriend and I have been through a lot together in the past few years but I was finally beginning to feel comfortable enough to start trusting him, little by little. I’ve begun to feel like we may have weathered the worst of the storm together and perhaps, we’ve begun to come out on the other side, still hand in hand.

I felt the breeze and the sun on my face. I thought about how beautiful the day was. My cell phone rang and I answered. It was my mother. She was sobbing uncontrollably. “Mom, calm down. I can’t understand you. What’s going on?” I said. My mother attempted to catch her breath. She proceeded to tell me, in swells of sobs, that my nephew would not be coming out to visit me. My nephew was in the midst of experiencing behavioral problems and my sister retracted his trip as punishment during a particularly bad fight with him that morning.

My heart sank. Each of my nephews use their trips to visit me as their very own vacations. I have one nephew visit at a time, so each of them can have the full attention of two adults. I go through great strides to make sure their trips are care-free, fun and allow each of them to be children. It had been my younger nephews turn to come and he had called me almost nightly for many months to excitedly discuss our plans for his trip. Two months before his trip was scheduled, he had emailed me a full itinerary and schedule for his five day visit. He acted as though he could weather his chaotic home environment because he had this trip to look forward to. I was thinking of all of these things as I listened to my mother sob. I knew my nephew would be crushed. My heart sank for him.

My mother had also realized my nephew’s excitement which is why, I gathered, she was so upset about the cancellation. I still couldn’t figure out at that point, however, why she was upset to the extent that she was. I tried to calm her. Several minutes later, she was slightly calmer. Then, she took on a tone she uses every once in a while – a somewhat childish tone that she uses when she wants me to care for her.

“And there’s something else I need to tell you, Emily. My doctor said that I should tell you that I’m on a suicide watch.” Even though I’ve heard these words from my mother many times in my life, they still hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart sank further still. ‘No,’ I thought. ‘Not again, please, not now.’

She began to sob again and explained that she no longer wanted to live; she was in too much pain. I began to cry. I was so frustrated, so wounded. Unlike my mother, my tears were silent. I folded my phone shut and placed it on my lap and shook with sadness. My boyfriend placed his hand on my knee. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hear those crushing words at that moment. I pulled myself together, wiped my tears away and opened my phone, hoping that my mother would not return my inability with her rage. She answered and her voice was calm and cold. “Sorry, Mom. My phone cut out, “ I said, cringing. “Well, I will talk with you later,” she said. She hung up.

I closed my phone and sat silently, thinking. There was always a possibility of my mother slipping into suicidal thoughts. Every once in a while, however, she’d experience larger, more frightening episodes during which her suicidal tendencies were more serious and pronounced. It had been years since one of these episodes, so it surprised me slightly. I guess it shouldn’t have. I should’ve known that it was about time for another one but I had watched my mother’s doctors slowly wean her off of her anti-depressants the previous fall, much to my surprise. I expected the sky to fall, but she did fairly well. I was very hopeful, being that this was the first time in over two decades that my mother had been taken off of all psychological-related medication. I realized that my hopes were premature as we drove along.

How quickly a lovely morning turned dark and cold. I was calm now and silent. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t speak. I did not want to weather another storm. As we drove along, I did what I could to shift my thinking back to our day. I would undoubtedly worry about my mother. I would call her again before the day was over to try to persuade her to go to the hospital. But at this moment, I did what I could to swallow hard, wipe away the tears and return to my life.

I find it difficult to return to my life when I’m in the midst of a family crisis, yet it’s a vital necessity, nonetheless. It is the natural reaction of a caregiver to attempt to swoop in, take action, coordinate and organize a response to any given situation. But I’ve learned that I cannot fix my mother. I’ve tried many times to pick up her pieces. I finally knew that at that moment, I could do nothing. That realization is scary and uncomfortable. I struggled to normalize my thoughts and bring my mind back to the car in which I rode. I placed my hand on my boyfriend’s leg and laid my head on his shoulder. Within the hour I walked down the street, hand in hand with my boyfriend, once again feeling the sun on my face. I laughed at a joke and didn’t feel guilty. I smiled and did not reproach myself for doing it.

Finding ways to integrate chaotic situations into a newly calm life is difficult. I’m finding the more often I do it, however, the easier it gets.