The next few months proved to be a very difficult time for myself, Melissa, my mother, and family. There are good days and bad days, but it’s clear my mothers mental state has not improved. She goes into manic states, and then becomes severely depressed. This goes on for months. Now here’s the devastating part of the story. April 3rd 2008. By this point, my mother has been instructed that she should not be on any painkillers (Vicodin, Ultram, etc.) or self-medicating with marijuana (which I discovered she had been smoking and took away from her). They are very dangerous to take with her medication she’d been prescribed for her bipolar disorder. I visit her and she begins telling me how much pain she is in physically. Her back hurts. Her knees hurt. She was in tears and she wanted me to give her her meds back, but I knew better. I wouldn’t. We argued and I left her house. I felt terrible. That night I was in bed with Melissa, who was asleep. I’m not sure what time it was, but it was late. It was quiet in the room, and there was a blue glow of light in the room. I looked into the corner of our room to the door that led out to the hallway. The hallway was dark, but something caught my eye. Suddenly, a woman in a white bathrobe appeared and was very still in the doorway. I froze, paralyzed. I couldn’t see her face, but she had dark hair and was very pale. I could see the veins through her skin. I stared at her for a few seconds. She began racing towards me at a speed my brain couldn’t process. She wasn’t running, but moving rapidly. I couldn’t breathe. I started to panic and tried to muster up a scream but couldn’t. I managed to sit up and throw the covers up over my head. I felt her pass through me. I could feel how cold and alone she was. I then felt Melissa grab me and shake me through the blanket, yelling my name. She pulled the blanket off of me and looked very terrified. She kept asking if I was ok. I think I may have just had my first-ever night terror. A couple of days later was April 5th, my mother’s 47th birthday. I hadn’t talked to her since we argued. I didn’t want to even go visit her on her birthday, that’s how distant we’d become. I knew going to see her was the right thing to do. Melissa and I went the store to get her a card. I shuffled through dozens of cards before settling on a very general and quick to the point birthday card, nothing too personal. Melissa decided she didn’t want to go over there to see her with me, which I completely understood. I went into her building which I still had the key for. Once I got into the apartment, I called down to her bedroom downstairs, peeked in and I realized she was still sleeping. I felt relieved. I didn’t have to see her, I didn’t have to deal with her delusions that day. I could just leave the card on the table with a note that said “stopped into wish you a happy birthday but you were sleeping!” It was around 2pm, but it was not unusual for her to be sleeping at this time. She was always tired. I left the card and the note. I got back into my car and got a phone call from my aunt. She was worried. She’d been trying to get ahold of my mother that day and the day before several times. I told her I was just leaving there and that she was sleeping. She sounded nervous and insisted I go back up to check on her. I reluctantly headed back in. I opened the door to her apartment. The air felt different. It was heavy. I suddenly felt a wave of…something. I went to the bottom of the stairs where I could see into her room. I called out “Mom?”. Nothing A little louder “Mom?”. Nothing. I told myself she just couldn’t hear me. I moved off the stairs landing, a few feet closer into her doorway. “Mom?” I said a little louder. I went into her room and stood at the foot of her bed. “Mom!” I said louder. “MOM!” I yelled. I wiggled her foot through the blanket. “MOM!” I walked around to her side. “Mom?” I said a little quieter. No response. I reached out and touched the back of my hand to her face. It was ice cold. My eyes lowered and I suddenly found myself staring at her neck. She was pale, blue. I could see the veins in her neck. How was that not the first thing I saw? It was as if touching her face brought me back to a reality I was pushing away. She was dead. I knew it. I ran upstairs panicked. I called Melissa, who then urged me to call an ambulance and said she’d be right over there. She got there before the rescue and sat with me upstairs, neither of us able to bring ourselves to go back downstairs. Once the medics got there, they came back upstairs shortly after trying to revive her. One of the men came upstairs got down on his knee, and told me he was sorry, but she had passed away. I knew she was dead but I hadn’t processed it until someone else told me. Melissa and I burst into tears. I had to call my aunt back and break the news to her. It took months before we found out what happened. The medical examiner eventually determined her death was due to acute intoxication of the combined effects of her pain meds and bipolar meds. Shed had a bunch of samples and various pills hidden away somewhere in her room. It was no accident, she had commit suicide. And the medical examiner suggested she had most likely passed away a couple of nights before. I’d been replaying the day I found her over and over in my head everyday, but it wasn’t until after the medical examiner’s report that I made the connection. My mother died on April 3rd. The same night I had my first and only night terror. I’m not sure what I experienced that night really. Was it a night terror or was it something a little more real? I can’t seem to escape the feeling that the woman I saw that night, who I felt pass through me, was my mother leaving her life behind. I can’t help but feel that her standing in my bedroom doorway was mirroring how I’d be standing in my mother’s doorway days later. She was so cold, and pale, I could see her veins. That would also be the last image I’d have of my mother. I remember both events so vividly. Six years have passed since then. I have never experienced another night terror or vivid dream since. Exerpt of Night Terror by ValencourtMusic ~Yukio
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 07:22:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015