For sake of clarity, I wrote this in October 2015. On the very same night it happened... She made a full recovery.
...
Ring ring. It's 8:30am and Dad is calling me. No big deal it may seem, but my Dad never calls me at 8:30am. Especially when he knows I'll be asleep. I'm on the late shift, 12 until 8. No need to wake up before 11.
"Hello?" I answer, tentatively. The man on the other end of the phone isn't the man I know. The strong-willed man that I adore. He is a quivering wreck, tears audible around the noise of sirens.
"I don't want to panic you", he stifles. (I'm already panicking. My Dad doesn't cry.) "It's your Mum. She's had a fall". The last time I heard the phrase, "she's had a fall", my Grandmother had tripped over a loose slipper. My Mother is 51 years old and her tripping over a slipper wouldn't make my Dad cry. Before I can say anything, I've learnt she's jumped off a cliff, 100 feet above the sea.
Numb. It's the only word that can fit the bill of what I felt. What I still feel. I've cried few tears today when I feel like I should have cried floods. As I speak, she's still alive, 8 hours of surgery and counting. We have no idea how she is. It's supposed to be me being the one in the family with major issues, not Mum. My Mum is a constant. The flashes of thoughts I've had today have showed me this could change. Yet, five minutes later we're talking about pizza, the rugby and the village of Elstow. Mindless small talk to distract us from this pure hell that we're experiencing.
...
We're back at their Torquay home now. None the wiser of how she really is apart from the (very important) fact that she's alive. Five minutes away from the hospital this afternoon, 'Something Inside So Strong" by Labi Siffre came on the radio. I'm not usually one for omens, but I'm prepared to believe on today of all days.
The day after, we get to visit her. Barely recognisable, drifting in and out of sleep. The words she mutters make little sense as I wonder what is going on inside her head. She was supposed to die but she didn't. It's a blessing, but one wonders whether Mum wanted it this way. My Dad and my sister talk as if they are blind to the most obvious of truths. "Broken limbs heal" my sister claims, for that is true, but what of broken minds? What of the state that brought us here? Not a whisper. No recognition of the fight against the brain that is coming, just broken bones and crutches. How much more has to happen for them both to realise what is happening? A small part of me, rather cruelly, wants Mum to stay in hospital, where she can't do anything. She feels like I once did. I can see it in her eyes. The emptiness and the despair, choking on her words because she fears they won't make sense. But they would to me.
They would to me.
I'm not scared of the immediate future. My family are right, broken limbs can fix themselves, but what happens when Mum can walk by herself again? Will we sit here, playing dumb, believing that history won't repeat itself? Can Dad see past his own belief that no one could possibly suffer from depression in this world, as we have it good. Nothing is unbeatable without a bit of good old-fashioned stubbornness and the "get on with it" attitude. I don't think he can. And that scares me. For my Dad feels guilty about leaving her alone, by driving her to this spot where she jumped off. For the few weeks preceding, she had spoken of taking her own life. How could he not see? How could he not put two and two together? After all that I went through, how can he still not believe that things like this don't just happen to other people?
I don't want to blame him. He'd never do anything to deliberately hurt anyone, for this is just a lack of education and awareness. His hugely optimistic mind cannot tolerate any thought of negativity, or that anyone else can ever have a negative thought. Admirable in many respects yes, but it blinds him to some obvious truths that I still don't think he has grasped. My sister is of a later generation, thus brings with it a clearer understanding and level of education about mental illness, but she was blessed with Dad's optimistic ways.
"It will never get worse than this", she claims. My Dad nods in agreement. I sit there in silence, looking deep into Mum's empty eyes and think this is merely the beginning. My job here is to awaken them to the mind of the depressive. Get them thinking in a way they've never thought before. I have to take myself back to my own dark days to convey the feeling of sheer horror that Mum is going through right now, because if I don't, events will go back to square one. Without intervention or professional help, my Mum will deteriorate again. Feeling guilty from what she's put her family through, like I once (and still do) feel guilty about what I did, it will eat away at her and there will be days where she will be too vulnerable, with just my sun-is-always-shining Father for company.
The risks are too high to just do nothing. Without my intervention, I believe that this will happen. I have to stand up and be brave and be strong, all on my own for no one else in this family knows what my Mum is really going through. No one in this family can look past the broken bones and the sling.
Merely a week ago, I was simply thinking that 2015 would be the first year where no drama had taken place. Nothing major or life-impacting. How wrong I was.
No comments:
Post a Comment