I still can’t quite believe my mother is gone. She survived so much, but in the end, it was something as simple as the flu and pneumonia that she could not survive. We had the sad task of cleaning out her small room at Lakeside Assisted Living. I wanted to rescue her art and her…
Category: Mom
My Mom’s Nine Lives
I recently read that the average lifespan for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia is 69 years. That’s a whole decade less than the average American life span. Mental illness cascades into physical illness for many reasons. Those who have trouble functioning in the world are less likely to get preventative care, more likely to live…
Free to be, you and me
Why be normal? That was a bumper sticker you’d see on the back of VW Rabbits in the early 1980s. But my mom, P’Tricia, knew that wasn’t even the right question. There’s no such thing as normal, she told me, over and over. The heteronormative nuclear family wasn’t “normal,” in her eyes. It was toxic….
Are you my mother?
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. If you are someone who has pushed another human out of your body and managed to keep it alive, kudos to you! I’ve never given much thought to this holiday, because of all the made-up holidays it seems fairly innocuous. If you happen to have a mother who is alive and likes…
Meditation on Mental Health
Today is World Mental Health Day, so it seems an opportune time to bring the topic out of the dark cupboard and shine some light on it. This year’s focus is schizophrenia, and as some may know, I have a close relationship with that topic in the form of my mom. There is still a…
Glacier National Park: A Prophecy
The first time I was locked out of a car I was 8 years old and on top of a mountain in Montana. My mom and I had been whisked from Idaho to Montana by her friend Joan. It was 1979. This was one of the occasions when my mom was suicidal. Joan — who…
Plumb Wonderful 