The Big D

October 27/15

Back on October 2/15 I was driving up the valley to spend the weekend with C when I had one of those moments we all have at one time or another. For some of us those moments are lite hearted and full of smiles and laughter, and for some they are dark, bring on a sweat, and make you pray that the strength you always thought you had was real.....and enough to stay the course

There is an abyss that we all face at some point in our lives. For the majority of us it will come as we slowly leave this temporal existence and move onto the next and for a small minority, though not as small as you'd think, it is faced far sooner in life than is reasonable. Some will face it young and get over it to go on and lead fulfilling lives, others will face it as a moment with a loved one after receiving news that is less than kind, and others may face it more than once.

We step to the edge of this abyss, this dark, deep, and unfathomable gulf that draws us in and attempts to hold our attention as it works its hooks into us.

As I drove I felt the onset of my old friend once more, an odd choice of words I'm sure you'll agree but better to embrace and battle it then deny it is here to torment and tease me again, not even knowing at the time what brought it back as life had felt so good lately.

I sat there music blaring and Moki the wonder puppy curled up on the seat to me with her head resting on my hand when I wondered what it would be like to slowly lift my hands off the wheel and let fate take it's course............to drift off the edge and just be free of everything

I didn't do that as the cost would be far too high a toll to pay....not in dollars and cents but in emotions and crushed lives.....mine, my children, my few friends, my puppy, and those who knew me but couldn't be classified as anything other than acquaintances. All would be left wondering how I could do such a thing.......the actual act is easy to do or not as the case might be.....what is difficult is the acceptance that such an act is even needed.

How low must a person feel in order to even entertain such thoughts?

Not really very low as I've battled these thoughts for years and years, never once succumbing to them but coming closer than I like more than once many years ago.

When I was in grade 7 my social group was pretty evenly split between males and females, we all hung out together and experienced those preteen and early teen years as a sort of nuclear family.

I knew what was going on with them better than I did my own family.

In that group was a young girl named Kelly, I'm violating my rule on never using real names as she'll never know and her initial won't give her personality like her name does.

Kelly was beautiful, smart, athletic, charming, and had every guy panting over her. She knew it and never once used it against any of us. Kelly had a little sister and a father. Kelly's mother was nowhere around when I first met her and it wasn't until a few months later that I found out she'd walked into the garage one morning after seeing Kelly and sister off to school, closed all the doors, started the car up, and sat down on the floor and silently fell asleep to never awaken again.

At just age eleven Kelly became a mother to her little sister and female head of the house as her father worked long hours as a marketing executive for some consumer products company. That has stuck with me for almost 40 years now.....how much burden her mother placed on her when she decided that life wasn't worth living anymore.......and based on many conversations with her over the next several years the one thing that stood out to me was how nobody was even aware of how fragile things were with her mom.

It is that knowledge that keeps me battling the beast......has seen me win the war so far and hopefully forever......but there are no guarantees....life doesn't work that way

For me it hits most often in the fall/winter when it gets cooler and the days a bit shorter. It hit me when I lived in Southern California but not as hard or often as it has since I've been in Canada. Part of me thinks it has to do with my mom being a December baby and her passing in '98 left me with a bit of an emotional hole that reaches out to remind me of my loss.

On that particular Friday I think it was the gorgeous scenery that did me in. Sounds sort of dumb to associate one with the other but it was a reminder of growing up and all the time I spent in Regina with my grandfather and cousins, literally some of the best moments of my life, and I felt momentarily lost as I gazed out on the beauty of the Ottawa Valley.........and for a brief moment didn't want to continue on anymore.........it would be so easy to just let things go but life wasn't meant to be easy....it is a continuous exam.....a test of ones endurance.....our will to preserver onwards when the odds are stacked against us.........life is the ultimate game where the stakes are literally and figuratively the same thing.......the joy of waking up each morning to face it all over once more

It was at that moment that I thought of my son and my daughter. I've yet to walk her down the aisle nor have I seen him graduate high school.......both events I've vowed to make come hell or high water.

Now you might ask what is to stop me once I've seen these come true...........

Mind games.........I play them with myself in that once I meet one objective I declare another one that presents some insurmountable challenge that will take me some time to meet.......

I've got a list of them and will bring them out when needed to make sure I'm around for a very long time to come......but that isn't too say I don't struggle with the welcoming siren call of the Abyss.....

All of us who suffer from depression.........some of us fail in our efforts and give in to the that monster...leaving wreckage in our wakes......while some of us fight the good fight, throwing out anchors left and right to retain our sanity....or what passes for it in this day and age.........

I feel it even as I right this blog, reminding me of those things I've done in life that make me feel ashamed, the pain I've caused people, the disappointment I've brought onto myself.....but I counter by reminding myself that my children are loved, my time spent volunteering in the community has helped others and offered me some redemption..........that is what we all seek in one form or another as we coast along the ripples our lives leave on the pond of life.........

The Big D doesn't refer to Dallas........it isn't a football rallying cry..........

The Big D is a beast we all encounter at one time.....it is what we do when we face it that matters the most.........it is those actions that will define us and the legacy we will leave behind........

For me I hope that the fact that I struggled with this demon but never gave in will offer my children and future grandchildren some aspect of my inner strength.......one I may doubt now and again but never ignore...........

I live with depression but I don't let it diminish my life.................

Kelly, I'll always remember you and the strength you showed me.....and promise to do my utmost to be strong for my own children so they never know the pain you carried and cried out on my shoulder that one dark and rainy night many years ago.............