Seventh Reflection of the Catalyst of My Story

When trying to write my college essay, my English teacher had us write with specific prompts and themes, but those always sucked. Any draft written in an attempt to meet this quota was horrible because it was ingenuine, I wrote a story that my English teacher would approve of, not mine. And honestly, Brian’s opinion was not one that mattered. The essay I used for my common application was written late at night after a manic depressive episode.

For me and many other people, this is a common occurrence. Mine were, well are, triggered by any forms of change in my life, one of them a few years back was picking colleges. Choosing a change was a terrifyingly unfamiliar change. All of the change in my life up until that point was out of my control, incredibly cripplingly painful experiences that forged my life onto a new foreign path. Yet now that former change is the only thing that can console me during these episodes. It sounds pretty weird, I know it is, that when my life hits a paralyzing pause after a belief of mine is proven wrong, or I feel a new form of happiness for the first time, the only thing that can comfort me is reflecting on the death of my mother.

After coming back from my first trip to Israel, I sat in my dorm room paralyzingly depressed. My mind and heart forever widened to the Arab perspective.

Work of art I painted in Haifa for a Jewish-Arab restaurant!

I could not move, think, live or be. I just sat, scrolling through the bright screen in front of me to avoid the even brighter, but tightening, feelings in my chest. The way I viewed the world no longer made sense, the people in my life no longer made sense, the lifestyle I followed no longer made sense, I no longer made any sense. I didn’t know where I was or where I was headed. This trip was a catalyst, causing a change in my life, and thus the manic depression onset. What made this trip and its following depression even more powerful was that Israel is the holy land of my mother; of the faith her family could have belonged to, the faith she was born into and the faith she chose. IT was amazing, the shifts in perspective are amazing and the resulting change will be amazing, but anything amazing in my life, any change in my life will always depress me because my mother is gone. Sitting here, jetlagged in an Israeli cafe, reflecting on what will be seven years without her.

Aroma! An irresistible cafe originally in Israel but is all over the world

I am stuck in a public place with no drinks I fight to not drown myself in, no pills that pop out of my spasming hands as I quiver from the thought of actually popping them, no person here that is obliged to comfort me. As a creature of habit, I resort to the only proven comfort, my mother, well trying to make sense of her death. If this apex change can be reasoned or rationalized, then every other change must follow suit right?

It has been seven years since my mother died, three years since the episode that got me into college, and those words are the only ones I can focus on. Any new story I try to tell or new words I type, depicting my recent spiritual journey in Israel for example, will be rubbish, because it is not the root of my anguish-this is.

*****

A close friend once said that my, “story and presence was honestly unbelievable, like something that wouldn’t pass TV studios or a publisher’s desk because it would make people sad or angry.”

My mother was a single working mom devoted to providing for my brothers and me. In 2010, our small quaint world was crushed with one word: Cancer. Hearing that my strong mama bear had to fight against her own cells was illogical. She fought ferociously for seven years and found the strength to live in a dying body.

Everyday tasks were exponentially harder for her as chemotherapy precipitated years of nausea and pain. The aroma of her delicious cooking diffused into every room, but the roars of retching rocked our small apartment. Hiding in my room to avoid the shame on my mother’s face haunts me to this day. She still baked colossal challahs, despite the nauseating smells of yeast and eggs.

She read my siblings and me a chapter of Harry Potter every night “to fill our sleep with wild dreams.” Her hands quivered as the pages turned, the tune of Rowlings’ spells were raspy echoes that barely reached our eardrums. Her voice was still that of a symphony, different surgeries and Lymph node treatment only changed the harmony, not the soulful melody.

Until the very end, through hell and back, my mother always had a smile on her face and a hug to give

Her perseverance and passion through multiple rounds of treatment showed me what true love is: sacrifice. Losing her crushed me, Cancer had crushed me, the only good thing in my life was gone. Who would bake challah with me or create the adventurous world in my subconscious slumber? Well, the state of Rhode Island thought a deadbeat father would be the best candidate for the job.

At 13 years old, months after my mother's death, I moved to Connecticut with my father and

“stepmom.” During this dark age, I was confused about why I went from my loving mother to my apathetic mathematician father who did not care to show up for my childhood. He belittled me, once uttering that I should kill myself and have the same fate as my mother at the dinner table. All of my time was committed to proving I was enough, but he was not impressed with a mathlete, varsity athlete, or a student in the top 3% of her class. Despite my achievements, my father abused me and my brothers. We could not shower, eat or drink, or shut a door; these actions were reprimanded with unspeakable actions that wept more than my heart.

He would randomly sort through my brothers' belongings and discard them; knowing that I could be next always eerily entrenched every fearful thought and experience. We were trapped in that house, isolated from our family and severely punished if we even tried to drink the hose water. I felt abandoned, left to die with a maniac who calculated every torture he inflicted. My brothers were forced to starve and I psyched into starving myself; because a father will only love his daughter if she is pretty enough, feminine enough, smart enough, GOOD enough. I studied while nauseous from dehydration headaches; I ran sprints on a fasted stomach when my muscles ached from moving, but I was never good enough for him. And I now know that I will never be good enough for him. My mother's love was the only thing that kept me alive as my father’s hate killed me.

I was always a bubbly and happy teen in my time with my father, but I was 90 pounds in the left beach photo in August 2018, and 82 lbs in the right school picture in October 2018. Looking back on these photos while making this post, part of me is disgusted by the power I let my dad over me and how I look. The other part is saddened that I physically lost myself after losing my mom, trying to please the one parent I had left. They say lucky number seven and on this 7th anniversary, I feel lucky to gained part of myself back and have the opportunity to discover the rest.

If DCF had not intervened, I would have died at 15.

It has been years since I was rescued by the foster care system. My life has drastically improved because I have finally learned to love myself unconditionally, but my father left a weight on my chest. Every day, his displeased voice whispers in my ear that I am not good enough for the people in my life, for the jobs I want to perform, for the works of art I want to create, for all the goals I want to accomplish; for myself. And everyday, my mother’s magical melodic voice inspires me to persevere through my father's sinister whispers.

My mother's melodic soulful melody and sometimes raspy harmony has inspired my passion for making meaning of life through music. Featured: Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen 1984

I agree with my friend, “my story is unbelievable,” but I am grateful for the first chapters. They tell my tale of loss, hardship, and pain but reveal my inner strength and passion for life. They comfort me now as I finally hold the pen to write the rest of MY novel as life unveils itself.

*****

Today, the day I publish this, will be the seventh anniversary of my mother’s death and boy has it been an eventful seven years. I don’t like to think about the pain that occurred during the meantime, but avoiding this pain causes me to avoid the joy. If you have read any of my writing, you know that I am still mentally ill. I am still in pain, in a state of irreparable ness. I will never go back to the little girl I was before I lost my mom. For she died the same day my mom did.

Now, I am lost in this confusing unpredictable world without my protagonist. I will always be changing direction and this will always be a scary thing without my main character. The closest thing I will get to my be admirable anchor and comforting character is reflecting on what once was:The old routes paved by mother’s sublime storytelling, comforting cooking and infernal illness. But with each depressive episode and more importantly their epiphanic life lessons, I am able to live: to create art, to make a difference.

It has been seven years with depression and there will be many more. As each year adds on, I will consistently be comforted by my rock, my mother. When she was alive, she was my absolute everything, my inspiration, my mama bear, my mom. And now, gone, she marks the few foreign path that I get to forge, and I hope to make it a great one; with every pause leading to a new beautiful chapter in the novel of my life.