Contributing Writer – Amy Bazerman
My mother died suddenly. My mother’s death was unexpected. My mother took her own life. My mother killed herself. My mother committed suicide.
Somewhere in my head I play around with these terms when people asked me how my mother died. What is the best way to say it? No, wait, what is the best way to say it to make the person on the receiving end feel ok with what I just said? Really, this is what I am thinking when I answer this question. The big question should be why do I have to make sure that anyone else feels ok with how my mother died and how I say that my mother died. And yet here I am carefully crafting my response to this question. This my friends is the stigma of mental illness that continues to be present even though we actually have a whole month (this one) that brings attention to this national health crisis.
So, my mother committed suicide. She took all of her pills and took her own life. She killed herself and therefore suddenly and unexpectedly died. She left me, my father, my sister, my children, my nephew, all of her friends, and extended family and none of us know why. We can suppose, we can surmise, we can guess, we can try and understand but at the end of the day we will never know why she is no longer with us here is this world. We therefore go through our thoughts and try and rack our brains thinking what we could have done or not done to prevent my beautiful mother from ending her life. We feel guilt, we feel anger, we feel confusion, we feel sadness, we feel lonely. We feel all of them at once and then we feel nothing at all and then it starts all over again. When I got the call from my father about what my mother had done, my whole world stopped turning. When I got to the hospital and saw her on the ventilator I knew it was a matter of time. When I sat by her bedside as she breathed her last breaths for 3 days after I broke in half. I rubbed her arm, smoothed her hair, whispered to her how much I love her and that I would be strong for my father and sister so that she could rest. I played Carole King’s “Tapestry” because it was her favorite album and I thought it would bring some peace to her transition. I read her favorite book “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” and cried hard tears thinking about how she couldn’t feel the words herself. I told her I was sorry if she couldn’t feel my love for her and that life was so hard for her. I told her she would’t feel the pain of all of her medical conditions anymore and that there would be no more doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, or sickness. I said goodbye every evening and rinsed and repeated every morning. It was brutal and traumatizing saying goodbye to her over and over; seeing my dad go through the horror of finding his wife unconscious, doing CPR, and then sitting by her side as she passed; watching my mother leave this world and knowing I would never again hear her voice saying “Hi sweet pea, just checking in to see how you’re doing”.
Now for the question, how am I doing? My answer to that question when people ask me is “OK” because that is how I get myself up in the morning and out the door and into work. I am the strong one people say. I have to be strong I tell myself. But as I said to my friend while this was happening, “I’m usually a strong woman but I am just broken right now”. And that’s the truth. My heart is broken. I am devastated. I am not ok. I may look ok, I may make jokes and do my job and get through the day but inside my guts are twisted up and sitting right at my throat ready to come out. I am in so much pain and yet I bite my lip, choke back the tears, pull up my big girl panties and put one foot in front of the other. I comfort others around me and try to say the right words to help them get through this unimaginable loss. Until I can’t. Until something so stupid comes up like the fact that the baby wrens under my deck left the nest makes me cry the ugliest tears I’ve ever cried and I hyperventilate into my pillow. So when you ask me how I am I will tell you OK but know that underneath I’m anything but and just hold space for me to do my thing. Know that if I say I’m not up for company it’s because I’m finally letting myself process the trauma and the loss and that it’s not personal. I will be OK, I know this deep inside. I have the love and support of my family and friends and the knowing that death is but a door we go through much like birth and on the other side of that door my mother is at peace.
I leave with you with words that helped me get through today that were written by my yoga teacher David Magone upon the passing of a beloved pet:
“As you pass through the bardo mom, remember that you are not your body. You are life without boundaries, and you shall never truly die. Wherever you are, know that you’re free! For a little while, feel the bliss of becoming one with everything- the ocean and the forests, and all the beautiful stars in the sky as well, and know that they are all manifestations of your wondrous true mind. And before you take on whatever your new form may be, always remember that birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey. In truth, birth and death are just a game of hide and seek.
So laugh with me mom, smile at me and let us say goodbye, so that we might come to meet again. I will look for you, and I know that you’ll also look for me. And you know what? We will meet again. We will meet again today. We will meet again tomorrow. We will always meet again at the true source, and we will meet each other in all the myriad forms of life.” – Adapted by David Magone from Thich Nhat Hanh
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