Since the moment my dad took his last breath, I’ve been trying to maintain mine. Life got harder. My boys became more distant. They turned to other ways to cope. But, they never turned to me. Seeing them suffer just killed me even more.
Some days it was so difficult to get out of bed. Who knew that breathing would be so hard. Since his death I’ve had three jobs, gained all the weight I had lost before his death back, and all three boys have an arrest record. My happiness and my faith were both shaken.
One thing I can say my boys did take after me was a “chosen silence”. I’ve never found comfort in confiding to others. Not even to the ones who love me most. I have all these negative layers on me, it would probably take a lifetime to uncover. So, instead of opening up, I shut down and bury it even deeper. But everything has a pressure point. That point where you reach your max before you finally explode.
Well, one day right before I was about to lead some eighth graders into yoga, my body started shutting down on me. My heart was racing, vision blurred, breathing increased, and my pressure raised. The nurse at the school took my pressure, called my doctor, and then called my boss. I was on the verge of having a heart attack or a stroke. For the next three months I had test ran on my heart, made to give up exercise, and had to take 2 medications to keep me from having a heart attack. The outer walls of my heart have been permanently damaged.
My doctor told me that I needed to relax and stop worrying about my boys. Then I overheard him tell my husband that I was “depressed”. Since then, I’ve been trying to find my life after death……..