Comforting article on the new "Lows of "Depression"

This has been one of the worst few days of my life.  Period.

Why?  Time.  That is the perpatrator pf my depression.. "Some", maybe not "significant", time has passed since Lily left the her side of the bed (from where I am currently typing this post).  With all of the sick days/weeks she used to stay at home, then the multi-doctor appointment days I took off to be with her, many with her parents and a handful without.

Then the days off in between doctor days when medication were being tried and "someone" had to watch her the whole day at home.  Same for the first two surgeries, the first one being about a week at home  and watched, and the latter, only about a sad 2-hours at home.

After that, she entered the hospital and would never come out.

In retrospect, I did not think that day of admittance (not counting the hospice hospital) would be the official start of her life ending.  That on that day, the doctors would abandoned all treatment.  That on that day we were told she'd be there a few days, which stretched into over a week.  

The fantasy of her last day in a hospital and returning home happy had passed in that span.  Probably in the middle.  About day three.  That's when the doctors' demeanors started                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          v changing and while the words "cure" or "good as new" were never spoken (nor were we expecting them to be said) you did have a grain of sand of hope.  Of a year.  Maybe 6 months?  Lily was told it was almost a guarantee she would see Christmas.

Looking back, the odds were probably millions to one.  Billions to one.  Like the lottery.

But I used watch tv at night when she was sleeping in the hospital next door.  Knowing that she was geographically close, helped.  Back then, I would talk to the girls in bed (face to face) with just the blue glow of the TV and say:

"Mommy's gonna come home," to Lucy.
"Penny, yes, you heard that. Mommy is coming home.  Not for a long time but maybe a week?  Who knows?  But SHE IS," and I swear Penny understood me.  Lucy, too.  They knew the word "mommy" and "home" and in that soft blue light, I could their faces look less quizzical and more happy.  Even lick my face,

I swear I could tell.  I really do swear they understood.

I hoped they could, is probably more like it.

Well, those few nights I did that to them turned out to be in vain.  Even though I promised them.

I don't have any quilt over a promise to a dog, but it was a way for me to cope being in the hurricane I was sucked into.

It grounded me.  Gave me hope. Only if temporary or was the size a piece of sand.

It was something.

And it is only now, how much I miss that feeling of hope.  There are a millions quotes that equate life to hope.  And they are all true, I now realize.  I wish dwelled in that feeling, back them.  Savored every minute.  Believing that help me fall asleep. Even though I knew.'

Because when hope is gone - the void is not granular.  It's planet sized.  All-consuming.  Like a super nova.

I sort of wished one of the million professionals that I/we talked to daily,  highlighted that more of that to me.  Not false hope, but...I don't know....extended it somehow..... I am not upset about it but I feel something could improve in the hospital for loved ones watching their person die.

And, as I tend to read a lot now when I get home (as TV seems too silly for no unless it's a medical show or documetary.

And then I stubbed upon this article: "Bourdain, Spade suicides show how even those at the top can know the lows of depression"

And I learned about "hedonic adaptation".  Which, I found very compelling and a little comforting.

Don't let celebrity names dissuade you from reading it.  They are the bait to get you too read a very well written analysis of how we do and don't live properly.  It suggest that this new epidemic of suicides seem to share a theme, which I cited above.

Anyway, it made me feel a bit better......