SI-Suicidal Ideations

As a child, I was taught elders held the truth of life, their stories the future generations guidelines; In the back of an ambulance I have learned more about life than I will ever learn from a faded memory.

Today, a mother who could no longer stand the pain, alcohol suffocating her parental instinct until she had anything to live for, was restrained against a gurney like an animal. Her tears streamed down her face, my eyes never leaving hers as I nod my head to her stories. When she sobers, awoken by a nurse who will give her the help I hope saves her life, she will not remember me. She won’t remember telling me not to let any man take my heart away from me. She’ll remember her kids, the two apples of her eye who have their own lives to lead. A mother whose life no longer includes helping her children with their homework, or holding their hand as they cross the street because their legs have long outgrown hers and she must let them go.

She calls herself worthless, yet she’s a mother who has brought two beautiful children into the world. Her eyes like rusted barbed wire ready to fight for her life, a torn and tattered wife, whose love is long lost. She screams for me to kill her, and I wonder who taught her that death is the only thing that can save her. Her chest strained as a panic attack strikes, her lungs already blackened by the nicotine of a cigarette.

Like the flip of a coin she twirls, landing on the beaten or the damned, her personality spinning out of control until she lays silent, too caught up in her own brain where the demons have names and faces. From an angry woman, to a tattered soul, the ride to the hospital is a never ending balancing act.

On arrival she searches my eyes for the thing she’s always lacked, happiness. She calls me beautiful, tightens her grip on my arm as I check her into the place I trust will take care of her.

When I let go of her hand, I hope she turns and grasps onto her son. I hope she forgets me, and replaces my face with that of the doctor that brings her broken heart back into the world. For now I will simply unbind her restraints, give her one last smile, and pray that we never need meet again.