The recent suicide of country singer Mindy McCready has made me think about how the death of a mother affects her children. Her children no longer have a mother and are left to try to understand and carry on, alone to deal with their loss and grief.
Life can be trying at times. No one is immune from depression or the feeling of being overwhelmed and swallowed up by the circumstances of our lives from time to time. Motherhood, especially in the early years, can be lonely and overwhelming. It's easy to lose sight of yourself and your own hopes and dreams. Motherhood is hard work and it takes everything you have to get through some days.
I had a terrible bout of depression when I suffered my miscarriage last year. My heart was completely broken. It was a grief that couldn't be spoken. I literally wanted to curl up into the fetal position and die. I was inconsolable. I felt like I had been betrayed by my body and by God. I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life. I felt that no one could understand this pain because if they could, they wouldn't be able to go on. I spent a month numbing myself with pills; all prescription. I couldn't bear to feel the overwhelming feeling of loss and emptiness that was swallowing me up whole when I was sober. I was in a hole and there didn't seem any way to get out. The only thing that could satisfy my pain was my baby and that couldn't happen. My baby was gone. There was no other solution to my problem.
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I lay there in my bed, trying to disappear from the world. Fragile and vulnerable, afraid to move or look in the wrong direction. Scared to speak to anyone, what if they said something to remind me or bring me to that primal place that I couldn't survive? It was everything I could do just to move through my grief. I cried for months at the most inopportune times. I call them my emotional time bombs and they still strike on occasion.
What pulled me through was the love and patience of my husband and the faces of my daughters, the kindness of strangers who shared their stories with me, and family and friends who loved on me with a fervor that was unparalleled. The spontaneous consoling hugs, the handholding and the reminder that in spite of the pain of my loss, I had been blessed with two children who were alive, healthy and who still needed their mother.
We were all affected by the loss. Through their own pain, they did everything in their power to give me space and smother me in unconditional love simultaneously, no small feat. They didn't know it but they saved my life and soothed my broken soul.
When you become a mother, you become the center of your child's universe and they become yours. I gave up the right to quit the moment that I gave birth to my girls. I thought of the pain I was feeling at losing our pregnancy and it reminded me of the pain I would cause them if they were to lose me. It was too much to bear.
Eventually, the dark cloud lifted. Not all at once, but little by little. I still get sad when I hear the song that was playing on the radio that morning as we drove to the hospital. I spent my expected due date in bed crying. I suspect, I will always mourn the loss of that little person that I longed to love in small ways. It's a lingering melancholy that goes on and on. But I have two little girls here, with me, whom I do get to love and spend my days with and there is still a lot of mommying to be done.
The problem with suicide is that it's permanent. It is final. I know that when you feel so completely overwhelmed, it may seem the only alternative to stop the pain and loneliness is to cease to exist. When you are a mother, suicide has a ripple effect that will be felt by your children for decades. Talk to someone, anyone, even if it's a stranger. Do whatever it takes to get yourself the help you need. There is no shame in being human. Your children need you to be here to love them because no one will love your baby like you can.
Image via Flickr/ Subactive Photo
