Helpless

 Today someone told me a bit about their life. They are the parent of a depressed and distant teen. They "know better than to push". They invite and hope and hurt when the one they love remains withdrawn. 

I've been there. I've walked that road. I want to commiserate, to say I know what you are going through. I want to reassure them that they are doing all they can, to add my experience to theirs. But I can't. My story will only make their life worse.

It won't help them to know how I reassured myself that he'd never been suicidal on the very day he was swallowing the pills, perhaps even the same hour. They don't need to hear how many times I didn't push, how many painful invitations I offered and how I forgave myself (and forgive myself still) for the times I couldn't bring myself to invite rejection again, the times I didn't know what was best, when the best I could do was to honor his wishes and hope for a better day. There is no good to be served by telling how my story ends: He was suicidal and smart enough to hide it. His wishes were to hide, to avoid pain and to die. I honored those wishes without knowing what it really meant. 

What do I say when another parent is where I was? Perhaps nothing at all. Perhaps, if I can bear it, some tiny piece of a much larger truth. 

What I can do is to be less open, transparent and sharing than has ever been natural to me. Be less of myself. Be someone else. As my heart breaks with every word they say, set it aside and be strong enough not to tell them what I know: that their darkest fears sometimes do come true and there is nothing they can do to stop it. It wouldn't have helped me and it won't help them. It's better for them not to know that they are more helpless than any parent can bear to be. 

Drafted early Jan 2023