Did you ever have to write an essay when you were little of who was your Hero? All the kids in my class wrote "My Dad or My Mom is my hero/heroine because blah blah blah". I don't remember who was my hero just that is wasn't my dad and especially not my mom. My mom, I walk around with a picture of her showing off her tan she got when she spent her summer on the beaches in France. She was slender and tall like me, with eyes that change color like mine and this huge smile on her face. She was 18, the age I am now. When I see her I picture this image I have of her that I keep in my pocket and try to ignore the woman that is in front of me. A woman in her late fifties whose eyes look clouded, has gained a lot of weight and shrunk somehow and with this expression of uncertainty, confusion, and fatigue.
When I was in the fifth grade my dad came to school to pick me up, but we didn't go home instead we went to Holly Hills because "mom was resting". He explained to me that she was just a little stressed out and needed a small vacation. I found out later that she had been seeing images and dreamed of other people's eyes and of killing her family with knives when we were asleep. My dad being the big supporter that he is supported the doctors decision to try to get rid of these images by doing electroshock therapy. She has been on medication ever since then. On occasion something goes wrong and she goes back in to "rest" for a little while. She doesn't socialize, doesn't try anything new, can't handle a job or crowds, cannot accept changes, and perhaps the worse part of all is that she has become not just financially but totally and emotionally dependent on a man, and he knows it. No more adventures to be had, she just sits and sits and sits in a house that is empty. On occasion the girl I carry around in my pocket comes out and with a impish grin will sit next to me and whisper "How about a sundae..." and we will quietly get our coats and sneak out giggling and head down to Goodberry's and sit down by the fountain and gossip and she will tell me stories about what she used to do. Perhaps because I resemble the girl in my pocket, or the way she used to be, adventurous, carefree, and always smiling.That the way she is now might be a genetic thing and that when I am fifty I will have the same look I see everyday on her face and be in my house sitting and sitting and waiting. This is my fear.