The best people that I have ever known carried a great burden of compassion and concern on their shoulders and in their hearts. They were and are people who cannot ignore unfairness or unkindness. They are protectors who seem to take on the weight of the world’s problems. Theirs is often a difficult state of mind just like the empath on Star Trek who almost died from bearing the anxieties and pains of those around her.
My mother was like that. She was highly perceptive and seemed to know when someone was suffering even when they had not mentioned what was bothering them to anyone. She would fret over their situations even in times when there was very little that she might do to actually help them. Somehow people understood that they might bare their souls to Mama. They knew that they would be safe from ridicule or judgement with her.
I remember so many times when ladies came to visit my mother and there would be hushed conversations happening in our living room. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of a person crying in my mother’s arms. She never spoke of what had happened or what had been said. Secrets were secret with her. She honored people and their privacy.
I don’t know if my mother only listened or if she offered advice. She was actually quite wise although I never realized the full extent of her understanding nature until she had died. When she was gone I missed her willingness to drop everything to hear what was worrying me or anyone else. She had good ideas but only suggested them if asked for help. Most of the time I just emoted with her, left her with more worries to cart around in her beautiful heart. It never occurred to me how many burdens I left her to think about. I was always able to simply move on, after all tomorrow was another day. For Mama the stories and pleas and anxious moments that came from those of us who knew that she could be trusted with our hopes and dreams and fears never left her mind. They accumulated until she would sometimes break like a fragile glass figurine.
I was good at tidying things up. I would get my mother well again and move on little understanding that her thoughts were never far from me, sometimes haunting her in the middle of the night. She was totally devoted to me and my brothers. She gave us her life and her love without any conditions. She thought that we were incredibly wonderful no matter how we might have slighted or hurt her. She only admitted to her pain whenever we treated her mental illness as being easier to handle that it actually ever was for her.
My mother wanted desperately to be whole again, to be well enough to forego the pils and the visits to doctors. She had been so strong until she wasn’t and her dream was to regain that level of health once again. She would fight her mental illness rather than be resigned to it. She tried so hard to just gut it out. She wanted her strong will to chase away the darkness of her depression and the demons of her mania.
I would get frustrated with my mother. There were times when I became angry as though she had somehow wished to be mentally ill and had ruined my own serenity on purpose. Of course I knew better but our journey through forty years of ups and downs was bound to make us both say and do things that we would later regret. It is the nature of such situations.
I have thought about my mother almost every single day since she died fourteen years ago. I have wanted to go back and apologize to her for losing my patience, I would give anything to have an opportunity to tell her what an incredible mother she was and how I appreciate all of the sacrifices and love that she gave me. I rely on the religious idea that she has been rewarded for her goodness in heaven and that she indeed knows how much esteem I have for her. In retrospect I see how brave and determined she was to be healthy and normal again. I see how disappointed she must have felt when the depression descended on her again and then the mania made her a caricature of herself.
People like my mother who personalize the pain of the world in their souls are the true angels on this earth. It is easy to just look away from the suffering of others but my mother was never able to be so detached. She was the best person I have ever known.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 