I learned I am not alone (again). It isn’t just me, there are more just like me. My mother was forty-five when she killed herself. I was twenty-two. It was a long time ago and now I have lived without her longer than with her, but here’s what stopped me in my tracks. Literally. I could not picture myself older than my mother, my future ended with hers, and that’s a problem, a big problem when you are trying to live. The year I was forty-five, I waited to die—for the whole year! Apparently, this is common; someone even wrote a book about it. Wish I’d have known that!
I was listening to Howard Stern and Rosie O’Donnell was on; she mentioned a book someone sent her on just this topic (I have to find out the name of it, even asked her on her blog) when she had her talk show. Not only did she go through the year of dread herself, her mother having died when she was young, too, but, she was relaying this information in reaction to Artie Lang’s (he’s on Howard’s show) being “out sick” news. Apparently Artie is going through the same thing over the death of his father when he was young. And for those Stern fans out there, believe me, I assumed he was on heroin again, too, but this is something I totally get, so maybe not. An interesting side note is that all of our parents died in very different ways, a fatal illness, complications from an accident and suicide. What they had in common was us. We were all young when they died and therefore destined to live longer than they did.
The year I was forty-five, I avoided therapy, and anything else that might have eased the pain. Apparently, that’s part of it, too. You feel you don’t deserve any better because you’re going to live and they died. Punishment for living – gotta love that psyche. When my mom started to really spiral I was very aware that I needed to get away, it was her or me and I picked me. Her vortex was pulling me in, and I was desperately trying to hold onto me. I’m fifty now, I know I made the right choice, doesn’t make it any easier.
I don’t know what this book is like, but I am most curious to find out how others lived their year. Did they lie in bed too depressed to get up, scream and fight or deny their way through the year? I worked, volunteered at my son’s school, went to the movies with my husband, did everything I always did, but with a feeling of dread that never left until I turned forty-six. And here’s the weird thing, I knew that if I could stand it (there’s that punishment thing again) I would get to forty-six, I knew I wasn’t going to die, I was just WAITING to die. There is a difference, sad and sick, but a difference.
As you can tell, I felt a little giddy learning about these people who have experienced what I have and this book that talks about it. Kind of proud, after all, it’s a real thing, there’s a book about it for crying out loud. And you know the very best part about this? The very best part is that I am not unique. And you all know I love to think I am very unique. So this is big. Very big.
