Katherine Brooke Writes

I have a very complex relationship with my mom.

I don’t want to talk about it, yet the words burn holes in my stomach. They are cruel and true realities.

Ignoring them don’t make them go away. We all learn this at one point or another. They gnaw at you from the inside, slowly, ever so slowly.

So here I am, writing to the void. Because all of my friends are asleep, and I am terribly lonely. That’s when it bubbles up inside. The things that gnaw ever so slowly.

Let me start over. You just need to know two stories for now. And to warn you, the first one might be triggering.

When I was twelve, a 7th grader, I was suicidal and self-harming. Usually, the cuts were not that deep. They scabbed and healed rather quickly.

This one night was different. This one night was the cause of my mountain ridge legs. I wanted to be dead, so I closed my eyes and cut as deeply as I could. I don’t even remember it hurting.

I don’t remember how much time passed before I realized something was very wrong. Days definitely. Maybe even weeks. The cuts were not healing. And they were . . . open. I could see the layers of my skin.

I went to my mom and asked her to take me to the hospital to get stitches.

That’s the whole point of this story. I needed stitches.

(I never finished writing the first story . . . she refused to take me to get stitches. That’s the end of the story.)

---

I’m back, writing to the void, two nights later.

I took my mom to the hospital yesterday.

I haven’t seen my mom in person for years. (On purpose.)

I have a complicated relationship with my mother.

I got a feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach. I knew she was sick. Really sick.

I went to her house on Halloween to drop off a birthday card. She wouldn’t answer the door.

“Under the weather.”

Police wellness check?

I did not call it, I promise.

(Probably the neighbors. She had boarded up the house with foam.)

But I thought about calling one.

Hard to walk? I can take you to the doctor.

I can take you to the doctor.

“I’ll take work off and drive you to the hospital.”

(She ended up not being able to make it to the door.)

She just needs to sleep. That’s what she said.

(I ended up taking her to the hospital after her nap.)

(I had to sob in order for her to go.)

(She’s still in the hospital as I write this and is preparing for surgery tomorrow.)

What surgery?

I didn’t ask. You don’t ask Mom questions.

Not the hard ones anyway.

I told her I loved her. And it felt like no time had passed.

And then the guilt flooded me. Painful.

Why did I ever stop talking to her in the first place?

The pain in her eyes.

---

I am cruelly reminded.

I see the little girl asking for stitches.

I see the little girl begging her mom not to leave her alone with . . . him.

That’s enough.

I drove my mom to the hospital because she is a human being, not because she is my mother.

Do you understand?