July 6th, 2021. My oldest child and only daughter’s 13th birthday. My mom heart was filled with normal emotions of nostalgia and bittersweet love at the thought of my baby becoming a teenager. We started the day as I start both my baby’s birthdays, blasting them out of their beds with our Amazon Echo speakers at the highest volume, playing the always appropriate, “Birthday Song” by the Beatles. The day was filled with all her favorite things; donuts for breakfast, Hungry Hobo (a famous local deli) for lunch, followed by an impromptu stop at a public spray ground to cool off from the hot summer day. The day was completed at her favorite birthday dinner spot, Olive Garden. The entire day was filled with smiles and laughter from us all and gratitude from the birthday girl for a day of being spoiled and a haul of presents. July 6th, 2021.
July 20th, 2021. A mere 14 days after a fun filled day celebrating my daughter’s 13th trip around the sun. 14 days of blissful ignorance, going about the summer days as usual, while also preparing for an upcoming family trip to New York City.
July 20th, 2021: easily the worst day of my life and the beginning to the worst month of my life. I woke up to my alarm, telling me it was a, “go into the office”, day. It was the beginning of my work week and day one of three that I spent away from home and the kids during the summer. Having a responsible 13-year-old with a cell phone and home security cameras throughout the house meant I was able to go into the office early while letting the kids sleep in and waiting for their call telling me they were awake, and I would summon the grandparents to taxi my babies to one of their houses for the rest of the workday. I never worry when they are with their grandparents because I know they are happy, well fed, and entertained when they are with them. This day was one that my mother-in-law had the kids and past summer days alluded to knowing she would have them with her, no later than 10 a.m.
It was a typical beautiful, sunny, and muggy July Midwest morning. I was usually one of the first cars in the parking lot of the hospital I work in, so I often walk into the building through an empty and silent parking lot. I began my trek across the two hospital lots and my cellphone rang. Unusual for two reasons: 1) No one calls, they text. 2) It was 7 a.m. and the caller ID displayed my daughter’s best friend’s mom's phone number. Unexpected, I answered my phone and was immediately met with apologies for the early phone call. I assured her it was okay as I had already been awake for a while at that point and simply wondered what was up. Looking back, I’m sure she was anxious and even hesitant to make that phone call. I’ll forever be grateful she had the courage to hit the “call” button.
After normal pleasantries were exchanged, the reason for the phone call began to spill from the other end of the receiver. I listened as she explained her daughter came to her the evening before, tearful and worried about her long-time friend and my daughter. I continued to listen and briefly paused my walk into the building as the mom found the courage to tell me, “She sent texts saying she’s going to kill herself”. I listened as she explained that my daughter sent these messages to her male long-time friend, who then sent them to this mom’s daughter, knowing she would be concerned and tell someone. My honest reaction to this; dismissive chuckles and eye rolling. I found myself making defensive comments that my daughter has been “completely fine” and was going to be busy playing with her cousins at her grandmother’s house today. This was followed by quick self-reassurance that it was probably a “dramatic pre-teen” comment, all awhile thanking her for calling me to tell me anyway. No sooner after we hung up, screen shots confirming my daughter did say these things to her friend, came pinging through my phone.
“It doesn’t matter. Once I’m gone, they won’t care.”
“I don’t want to be alive anymore.”
“don’t tell anyone. Let them find me.”
Immediate disbelief to the idea that my little girl had such strong, deep, and mature feelings to even dictate these words filled my brain. To say a feeling of slight annoyance of the dramatics I was witnessing never occurred to me, would be a lie. So, truthfully, reading these screenshots from someone who I believed could never feel this way and may simply just be looking for attention and going about it in the worst way, was where my blissfully unaware mom brain went.
First call to action: Call my other half. He usually has a levelheaded perspective on things, however understandably so, confusion and disbelief overcame him as well. Was this serious? Was she just being dramatic and seeking attention? Regardless, we need to treat this seriously, right? Together we decided I would contact her pediatrician and seek their advice. Her pediatrician encouraged me to talk bluntly with her. Tell her about the text messages and ask her straight up, “Do you want to kill yourself?”. Whereas that seemed like a big pill to swallow, that blissful ignorance popped up again and told me, “She doesn’t feel that way. This will be over quickly.”
After work, we arranged for our son to stay with his grandmother and would only be picking up Ava to go home. Looking back, I wonder if she had an idea of what this impromptu “family meeting” (minus brother) was going to be about? Was she nervous? Was she relieved? Once home, our small quiet living room was quickly filled with explanation, proof, and concern.
“Is this true?” “Do you feel this way?” My questions were followed by an explosion of tears, accompanied with a quick and loud, “Yes!”.
A single word response that would shatter my entire heart and life as I knew it.
“I don’t know why! I just have bad thoughts and I don’t want to be here anymore!”.
How? How, baby girl? You are the most beautiful gift God has ever blessed us with. You are loved by so many people. You have a huge extended family that you are close to and who all love you. You have everything you ever ask your dad and I for. You have friends, a good school, a great happy home. You’re smart. You’re beautiful. You are my sunshine, my whole life, and the reason I breathe! How? How can my baby girl feel this way?
This was easily the worst conversation I ever had in my entire life. In a matter of moments, three hearts broke in our living room. The pain in my husband’s tear-filled eyes was so deep and torturous for me to see. As he held our baby girl in his arms, he knew her tears couldn’t be stopped as easily as they could when she was little. A kiss on an “ouchie” or a tickle to take her mind off the pain, wasn’t going to be enough this time. All he could do was hold her, let her cry, and wish like hell he could take away her pain.
After a few phone calls, our next step would be taking our little girl to the emergency department at a local hospital, where she would be screened and questioned in their mental health emergency ward. It was there that we were forced to face reality and laid eyes on the cut marks inflicted from our baby girl, on her own little body. A little body that I carried inside my own for 9 months and continue to care for. Her smooth ivory skin was exposed for the nurse to examine, and nothing could have prepared me for the abrasive red lines marking her once perfect skin, covering most of both of her forearms, her inner thighs, the side of her breasts hidden by her bra, and even on her hip where her underwear lays and can be hidden. I held her hand while she cried and told the nurses what she had already admitted to her dad and I: “I have bad thoughts and don’t want to be alive.” Hearing it more than once did not make it less harsh. Her dad wrapped his arm around her shoulders while we were escorted to a fully padded room, where we were then locked in and made to wait for hours until a therapist was available to evaluate her. We were relieved to find out that nothing happened to her, to trigger these thoughts and this behavior. She wasn’t being bullied; she hadn’t been harmed in any way by anyone. She was simply depressed and anxious and had no control over those emotions. Relief was quickly replaced by confusion, guilt, and crushing sadness. She was a happy kid. She had friends, was involved in dance and volleyball. Her dad and I were happily married. We gave her everything. Our children don’t long for anything. Everything within reason is handed over to them, gladly. Sure, she expressed the typical mood swings of a teenager, but nothing ever gave us red flags. How could I have missed this?
My entire world was crumbling inside that plain, white, padded room and all awhile my baby had calmed down and even giggled as we watched, “Big City Greene’s”, on the Disney channel. I imagine a sense of relief probably flooded over her now that everything was out in the open. Her relief was now my grief to carry.
As we drove home, she asked, “What’s for dinner?”. I sat in the front passenger seat, physically feeling heartache while holding back tears and she was hungry. We grabbed fast food. I wanted to crawl in a hole and cry until the pain was gone while she happily ate her dinner.
That night, I slept in her full-sized bed next to her. In those moments I felt I couldn’t leave her side for fear of her taking her actions further after this upsetting day. I couldn’t leave her side knowing she had thoughts of not wanting to be alive anymore earlier that very day. If I stayed by her side, she couldn’t act on that. I climbed onto her bed and pulled her purple comforter over us both. I laid on my side, facing her, with one arm rested on hers. I stared at her as she drifted off to sleep quickly, exhausted from a long day. I stared at her, held her arm tight, and cried silently until I too drifted off to sleep.
Prior to this, the only real heartbreak I had felt was when my grandparents passed away. The type of heartbreak where you can literally feel an ache in your chest. Where your stomach drops and tears can’t be predicted or controlled. The type of sorrow where I feel like I’m in a fog or in a tunnel. I can only focus on the heartache and everything around me simply keeps moving and going but I feel stuck inside my own emotions. Exhaustion takes over my body during grief. I don’t want to do anything except sleep. Sleep is my only escape. I can’t feel the heartache and tears can’t flow. My dreams can take me away if only for a short time. In those few moments after I wake up, reality is still forgotten, and I smile and am happy. Those seconds pass and I am pummeled with reality again. My daughter was not gone, but my heart ached as if she was.
I spent the next days in that, “grieving fog”, but the world still spun around me. It was summer so both kids were home. I had to make phone calls to pediatricians, counselors, various mental health facilities, friends in the health field, and family. All awhile, keeping the conversations “hidden” from my 9-year-old son. The kids had plans they were happy to keep without hesitation. But how? How was anyone still able to enjoy the sunny summer day when the world had stopped spinning? How could she go on as if nothing had happened? Then again, she had been playing the part of being, “okay”, all this time. What’s another day of masking her feelings?
All this destruction happened days before we were to leave on a weeklong vacation to New York state. We rented a luxury SUV and planned to leave Saturday of that week. Friday, my husband, and I drove to the local airport to pick up the rental car and I vividly remember staring out the window of the passenger seat, sun beaming through the glass, and tears burst from eyes without warning. I told my husband I couldn’t go on vacation. I told him that I didn’t want to go. This was a vacation we had been planning for 7 months, full of bucket list destinations that the kids and I had dreamed of! How could we still go when nothing was okay? I was not okay. Packing, last-minute planning and normal preparation all seemed to fall to the bottom of my priority list.
I was able to schedule an appointment with her pediatrician that Friday, the day before we were scheduled to leave. Scott, our pediatrician and a God send. He has an extensive knowledge on the topic of mental health issues in our youth, that I never knew I would need to utilize. I'm forever grateful for him. I remember sitting in the office waiting for him to come in. The room was silent as my daughter filled out a questionnaire that the secretary handed her to be completed on her own. Questions were listed, asking how often she feels sad, has she lost interest in normal activities, etc. I remember looking at her up on exam table; she was slumped over, no expression on her face, her skin tone even seemed to be faded out like a shirt that was washed too many times. How did I not see it before? How did I overlook that my once bright and bubbly little girl had her light dimmed so low? Scott came in and got right to work; he asked about the recent events that brought us to his office that day. He asked her what she was using to harm herself then blatantly asked, “Do you want to kill yourself?”. Although I had asked her that very question the day prior, hearing it again, was not any less abrasive. Even more painful was my child’s response of a simple shoulder shrug, indicating her uncertainty of the answer. He then explained that he needed to check her body, head-to-toe to make sure the self-harm she had done, wasn’t infected. Again, noted were her forearms, biceps, the sides of her breasts, her thighs, and her hip. All tainted with scars that represented moments of pain and darkness inside of my little girl that I was blissfully unaware of.
How did I miss this? A question I will never stop repeating in my head. We left his office with tools, advice, and a follow up appointment. I felt a sense of disappointment like the disappointment felt when a child is sick and we take them to the doctor, hoping a prescription could be written and they would quickly be on their way to feeling better, but instead we were told it was a virus and it needed to, “run its course”. That is what mental illness feels like sometimes, a virus. That same day I was able to secure an appointment with a counselor at a local Psychology center for a few weeks later. For the time being, we had done all we could.
The previous Spring I purchased tickets to see a Queen tribute band at our local arena for just the kids and me. It was scheduled for the night before we were leaving for vacation. After a heavy day at the doctor’s office, I wondered if she would even be up to going? As I slowly learned over time; Of course, she still wanted to go. Of course, she wanted to have fun and go on with her normal routine. The pain she felt wasn’t new for her. That pain was new and soul crushing only to those around her. We went to the concert, she smiled, she sang, and she danced. She had a blast. I smiled on the outside and tried so hard to believe that her smiles were genuine.
The next day was the start of our long road trip to the East Coast. As I struggled internally, my husband reminded me that we were all confined to the same vehicle for the next two days, the same living space of hotel rooms for the next 3-4 days, and then the same car ride back home. She was in our personal space for the next week and we were in hers. A week without seclusion or too much time to think. She was unquestionably safe. The timing of life’s happenings is never a coincidence. I was meant to discover this heartbreaking secret about our daughter right before our family vacation. Although I was still completely broken and mourning on the inside, I was able to really take note of and embrace the moments of joy that my children felt, in the moment they felt it. Those small moments of silliness and laughter, to the big moments of witnessing the awe when my family saw God’s natural wonders or mankind’s glorious structures for the first time, were all imprinted into my mind like a tattoo that can never be removed. Every smile my daughter expressed, every laugh that slipped through her lips, every light that slowly brightened inside of her, was a gift.
This was just the beginning of something that has changed us forever. Our lives will always be noticeably different and separated by "before and after" the discovery of our daughter’s internal struggle. While this description of time is separated by a devastating happening, the person my daughter is before and after that event is a blessing. She has always been our reason for joy and our sunshine. Our world does not spin without her. Just like the sun, sometimes it gets blocked by clouds and storms. We are built to need and crave the sun, so we standby through the darkness with our umbrellas and patiently wait for the moment when slivers of rays break through the clouds, knowing that we can’t lose hope, because eventually the sunshine will return. My daughter is my sunshine. There is no “me” without her. I will always standby during the darkness and love her, no matter how bright or dim her light may be.
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