Can We Get Real?

I was inventorying, like a shopping list, all the reasons why my daughter’s absence may actually be a good thing. 

Our last moments together before I left her in Georgia.

I was narrating myself away from pain, helplessness, fear. 

And it was (nearly) working, right up until my therapist told me to stop. 

Just stop. 

You need to get in touch with your despair. 

It’s been a month since my sweet baby angel (SBA) daughter’s guidance counselor called to share concerns about our daughter’s mental health and well-being. 

We, too, had witnessed her increasing sadness, a growing lethargy — an edge to her. 

Tenderness too. 

Any mention of school provokes a flood of emotions and tears. 

The truth is, our major transition, set atop a pandemic, from Colorado to New Mexico has been hard on all of us — but hardest of all for our 11 year-old. 

Yet still, here on the phone, the guidance counselor went beyond my comprehension when she told me SBA has been showing signs of depression and suicide ideation. 

I put the phone down —I didn’t know what to do next. 

My friend Lindsay is a licensed therapist;  she always takes my calls. 

Expertly, Lindsay led me from panic to a deeper understanding and tools for helping SBA. 

Lindsay told me, sometimes when kids say they want to die, what they really want is for their life to be different. She explained that sometimes they hurt so much they don’t see any way out of their pain.

She gave me the courage to use the term “suicide” when talking to SBA. To let her see me steady- see I can handle it and she can talk to me. I’m using that courage to talk to you about it here now, too. 

I’m compelled to share everything Lindsay told me:

When kids struggle, they need to know their family can handle whatever problem they bring to us. 

With Lindsay’s help, Andy and I were able to come to the conversation with softness and compassion. 

We let SBA know she was safe to say whatever she was feeling. We let her know we’re here to support her, not judge her — but also not to fix her. 

Lindsay’s advice was to build trust, to support SBA so that she too might muster the guts to say hard things. To talk candidly, without fear of her parents “losing it” emotionally. 

Lindsay coached us to be steady, calm, soft, compassionate. 

It’s a privilege, I know, to have wonderful friends and family during this challenging time. 

We brought in more voices. 

Andy’s mother asked if we would consider letting SBA come to Georgia to finish out the school year. 

My heart flung itself into my throat. Was she crazy?

How could the best thing for SBA put her 1500 miles from me? 

I am her mother. 

I know what she needs. 

But as I sat with it, I began to feel, with heartbreaking clarity, a traditional school in a familiar and loving setting, may just be the change SBA is desperately in need of. 

For days Andy and I struggled to envision how the world could possibly continue to turn without SBA here with us. 

And yet still, we could also see how school — the 45 minute drive each way, two days a week, and the online requirements of her hybrid school when she was meant to report from home — were isolating her and siphoning her characteristic optimism, social gifts, and enthusiasm. 

And so, we asked SBA, “Would you like to finish out the school year with Nana?” 

A 10,000-pound weight lifted off her body. With big, innocent, disbelieving eyes, she cried out “Seriously? Yes, Please! Please!”

And so it came to be. 

Today SBA turned 12. 

And I am not there to wake her up and tell her how happy I am she was born. 

I am not there to watch her open the precious necklace I picked out for her, or the gifts her brother chose for her. 

I am not there to make her a cake. 

I am not there to hug her. 

I am not there to sing to her. 

There will be no photos of us together. 

This is hard. 

But I know it’s not abnormal. 

I know others are suffering. 

Can we talk about it? Can we please start talking more about how hard parenting is? Can we please share more than the perfect images of family life?

Can I do this? Can I hit send on this email? Can I publish this article?

My mother-in-law said to me “Families rescue each other. That’s what we do.” 

I have had to work hard — I am continuing to work hard — at not seeing SBA’s relocation to Georgia as a failure to persevere, but rather as an opportunity to teach SBA and myself that it’s our willingness to adapt, change and think radically that will save us. 

It’s our intuition — not discipline — we must develop. 

And so, today I trust that despair is what's called for. (And some ice cream, ahem.)

So, without ever leaving my home, I am in new territory. 

But I am not alone. 

Because we’re really talking now, aren’t we?