I Talked My Mom Out Of Killing Herself When I Was 12
That was the end of my childhood
My mom grabbed her coat and slammed the door on her way out. She’d been screaming at us for almost 30 minutes. It was Saturday, and my dad was at work. The four of us children had been playing the board game, Finance. That game was a forerunner to Monopoly.
As usual, we were arguing loudly. We argued about everything all the time anyway. Our house was always full of tension due to my mom’s bipolar disorder and our chronic lack of money. My dad had just called to say he would be late, and after being cooped up with us all day, my mom fell off the edge.
My dad got paid on Saturday, and it was with that money my mother was going to go to the grocery store. We’d already had two meals of Cheerios that day, and now the milk was all gone, which put our food budget into the red.
More and more tension
My mom sat at the table with us, crossing items off the grocery list. She started to cry. At first, just a couple of tears leaked out and rolled down her cheeks, then her shoulders started heaving, and she began sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
I’d seen her do this enough times that I didn’t cry along with her anymore, but my siblings were all sobbing. It wasn’t long before the inevitable…
