Why I told my kids about my mother?s suicide
?How?d your mom die"?
Time stilled a little. This question from my precocious five-year-old, a child already versed in the inner workings of procreation, who?d interrogated me relentlessly about God and evolution and sewage processing at the tender age of three, would, I knew, blossom into an onslaught of queries until the truth slipped out if I didn?t answer him directly right now.
I glanced at his green eyes in the rearview and they stared back, intent. This moment: I hadn?t expected it so early in his life.
?Well,? I began. ?My mother had a disease, just like Dad?s father had cancer. But this disease was in her brain and it made her very sad. And she didn?t get the help she needed in time to feel better. She was so sad for so long that she chose to die.? Since the very beginning of motherhood, I?ve vowed to answer my children honestly, because I remember what it felt like as a child to have serious questions skirted. It sent a clear message: We do not talk about this because it?s shameful. And the shame soiling my mother?s struggle with mental health, and ultimately her suicide, contributed to it.
Tissues damp with salinity lay in piles next to her bed in the mornings, but in the house where I grew up, we all suffered from our respective problems quietly, shame-fueled, behind closed doors. I knew the meaning of the word depression from an early age because my mother whispered it into my ear in explanation of the apathy that accompanied my father?s chronic pain, alon...
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