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Put on a Happy Face

Those of us who have a loved one who suffers from depression, we know the color gray. We know how easily a day can go from technicolor to gray in a single phone call, a downcast look, a sigh.
We know that the only other helplessness that is even slightly akin to this, is that which we feel when our children are sick.
We think that if we could only make the right meal, say the right thing, plan the right event. We think if we could only smile that much wider, it would become infectious, and all would be all right.
We tell ourselves that this too shall pass, but it passes like molasses, and we wait.
Brave faces galore in public, nothing can be as it seems. How is your sister, your husband, your uncle, your friend they ask innocently. And you feel your face crack into a thousand pieces as you smile brightly and declare them to be fine. You hear the click of the wheels on the grocery cart as you walk away, and the only way you know how to keep walking without falling, is to align your steps with the clicks.
We read books and articles, recommend vitamins and exercise. We convince ourselves that a cure lays just beyond our reach, and that if we exhaust ourselves by searching, the puzzle will solve itself. On the down time, when the phone is silent, and the downcast looks are unable to be seen, and the sighs are out of earshot, life reassembles itself like a Salvador Dali in reverse. The clocks tick again, the birds sing, and our friend, Food, is once more able to delight us.
At night, when the exhuberant sounds of unknowing children have been tucked beneath blankets and lovey bears, and meaningless tasks have dwindled and gone, the fear and loneliness whistle in oh so casually, and you cry the emptiness out.
You may find, though reluctantly, that while your smile is not contagious, their depression is. Their power is too strong to resist. Down the rabbit hole, we go. And only then do we understand that our urging, our begging, our promises and our lies will do nothing to alleviate their pain. All that is left, at this point, is to hold them to you, tightly tightly tightly, so they can not float away.

Comments

  1. as one who often wonders if I will ever find a tether... one who's friends and family smile bravely for, I thank you for writing this. It made me smile and brightened my moment. please don't give up... that person needs you more than they know how to tell you.

    peace and solidarity
    sars

    ReplyDelete

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