Elizabeth Hatfield

Mom

 

I remember the first time she went in. I was thirteen. I remember her saying: “don’t worry I’ll be fine, this is the first time and the last, I promise”. She lied. She broke her promise. It was the first time but it wasn’t the last. I have honestly lost count of how many times she has gone in to the psychiatric side of the hospital. It definitely wasn’t going to be all right. She would come home and she wouldn’t be better if anything she was worse. In manic phase she would turn the house upside down then become depressed and sleep for three days straight. She’d leave us to clean up her mess. She promised me that everything would be all right and I believed her, but she lied.

Now almost three years later I sit next to my father, staring at a hot pink ticket. This is our ticket to get and see her. The bright pink clashes with my mood, a glare against the brown and black inside my head. Have they no respect for the gravity of the situation? Why not use some dull color to match the gloom, Brown, for instance, or gray. Those colors would be preferable but pink? Pink is too happy, too nice. Its like they’re making fun of how horrible life really is. Or maybe they’re trying to soothe you or comfort you with pink. I don’t know and honestly I don’t care.

I don’t care about much theses days. Schoolwork drifts to the back of my brain. Friends avoid me because they know or even worse they pity me, telling me how strong I have to be. I’m tired of being strong. I’m tired of the concerned looks. I just want people to leave me alone to soak in and deal with my despair.

I get bored starring at the ticket and instead stare at my hands. These hands that have hugged her and comforted her when she broke down and cried. Theses hands have found my sleeping pills under her pillow, these hands have called the cops when she attempted to throw it all away. These hands have taken away the medicine when she OD’d. My eyes have watched as she sank lower and lower into the dark. My ears have bleed as she screamed at him for something he didn’t do or did do.

I used to cry but now my tears have run dry. I am filled with anger, frustration, depression and fear. Sometimes I hate her, I pity her, I fear for her or I love her. But no matter how many things I’ve seen, felt or heard my hands still do one thing: they clasp together and pray and hope for her. Through countless hospital stays I still cling to my naïve spark of hope. After all she is my mother and she promised.

All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Elizabeth Hatfield.
Published on e-Stories.org on 06/10/2010.

 
 

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