Her Mother’s Daughter
Something is changing the way I express my compassion, how I feel compassion. Something is different and it may look like I’m lacking compassion. One thing I have noticed in caring for my mother is a basic change in my temperament. I have had to learn to tolerate a new level of grief, pain, and … Continue reading Compassion and Expression
I meet her now for lunch. We share food and conversation. I can check in on how she’s doing. She can see that nothing bad is happening to me. Her mind is lively. She’s still interested in art, architecture, politics. She showed me a couple political books she’s read lately. She’s in there, interested in … Continue reading Staying in Her Life
Self-care comes naturally to some people. I am not one of them. Self-care has long been difficult. In the past several years it has become even more challenging. In my support group, we go around the circle at the end of the meeting to talk about what we’re doing to take care of ourselves in … Continue reading An Unexpected Benefit of Self-Care
She asks me if I even spoke in Meddler. I tell her no, I don’t even know what Meddler is, except for what she has told me. She says it’s a communication system. She says that someone in Meddler spoke to her who she hadn’t heard before. She had a young voice, which is unusual … Continue reading She’s Going to Disappear For a While
I was walking through the city today, seeing people wrapped in blankets sleeping on the sidewalk, elders sorting through their belongings, women my mother’s age, women homeless as mother is. I thought it was the alienation I have been feeling towards this city, how we allow this. It is also the knowledge that these are … Continue reading A New Walk
Here we are, approaching the end of the year. It’s been nearly three years since my mother has reappeared. I’m no longer in full flaming freak-out. I’m no longer in the deepest despair of her situation. There is a low murmuring grief that we are here, another year of my mother on the street. Another … Continue reading Closing the Year
I was clearing out my old files and found my mom’s medical records from the last time she was hospitalized, the first time she disappeared, that I wrote about before. Then I found my notes from that time. Notes on the state of her apartment, the missing persons report, her extravagant shopping bring me back … Continue reading Time Capsule
I hear him before I see him, with the louder, faster than usual talking. I am sitting in the window seat, knitting a hat, when he sits down next to me. “I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t protect you.” fades back into unintelligibility. I am thinking about my mother now, how much this is like … Continue reading Of Mental Illness and Bus Rides
It’s Thursday morning and I have lots of work to do. I still haven’t read the writings my mother gave to me and I’m meeting her for lunch. I don’t want to read her writing and I know I have to. I’ve already read the happy ones, the mini-memoirs of the happy events of her … Continue reading Don’t Want to
What good can come out of this? This thing I can hardly talk about, but weighs down my every day. Isn’t that the thing? We want to know that whatever difficulties we’re going through, it’s all worth something. I look at these last couple years since my mom reappeared, at all the time and energy … Continue reading An Alchemy of Mental Illness