He Carries, I Witness

He carries, I witness.

On his knees, hands folded together in front of him, fingers entwined.  Head tilted back, eyes to God.  Big round tears dropping from each eye, rolling down his cheeks.  Quiet sobs escaping between the downturned corners of his mouth.  Quietly at first, he prays.  Then he cries.  He wails.  Praying and pleading to God to please take him now.

“Take me to Heaven. Please…” He cries for God to take him to Heaven.

I can hear the pain in his voice.  See the hurt.  The weight of his agony and the burden resting on his small shoulders.  A burden no child should have to carry, no parent to witness.  But we do.  Him and I.  He carries, I witness.

I wish I could carry the pain for him.  Take it away. Remove it.  Erase any memory of it.  But then that is what we all want to do as parents.  Prevent the hurt…and when we can’t, kiss and make it better.

There is no kissing and making this better.  The pain is deep.  Embedded.  He’s laden with torment and I can’t do anything about it.  Anything that feels like it’s enough anyway.  I’m getting better at being still in moments like these.  Limiting the questions I have for him, the persistence of trying to smooth it all over.  Because this just doesn’t smooth over. Waves of sadness wash over him.  And I sit near him.  Rubbing his back, if he’ll let me.  Hugging him, if he’ll let me.  But mostly watching.  Mostly ensuring he doesn’t hurt himself or seek out dangerous situations.

In the moment, my heart breaks and hardens at the same time.  It breaks at the sight of his pain.  Hardens at the thought that he has to suffer like this.  Hardens to protect itself during the episode so I can be at the ready to help, protect, defend.  During these times, I become a soldier of sorts, fighting a battle I don’t feel prepared to win, but hopeful I will.

This is a war we are in, Noah and I.  Together, we experience each battle.  A fight between heart and head.  Violent emotions that he spends so much time stuffing into the deep dark trenches of his mind, but they’re too strong to keep down, hold back.  And eventually, they bubble up to the surface, clashing with his heart.  Creating the brutal reality we experience in which he can’t understand why he feels this way.  A reality that tells him he has no place in this world, no purpose.  Unworthiness taunts him.  And this is when he feels it would be easier, less painful to not be on this Earth anymore.

He wails, “I don’t want to be here anymore.  I don’t want to be on Earth anymore.  I want to be with Grandma Betty and Grandma Arlene.”

Despite my best attempts at holding strong and staying quiet, without thinking I begin to ask, “Why?”

“What happened Noah?  Why are you so sad?  Did someone bully you?  Are you upset about school?  Did someone say something mean?  Did you have a disagreement with your friends?”

“No.  You don’t understand, you won’t understand.  You never will…”  Tears drop from the corners of his eyes.  I reach out to wipe them from his face.  He lets me.  A small, small gesture on both our parts, but it helps each of us to know we are in this together.

He’s right, I can’t possibly ever understand.  My first instinct is to find a reason.  Find a person, a situation…something to blame.  But that’s not how this works.  This depression present in Bipolar doesn’t have a reason.  There is no, ‘If X, then Y’.  There is not a literal translation of cause and effect.  But this is hard to take, hard to accept.  I want to eliminate the pain.  Hunt down the cause and get rid of it.  Full on eradication of all things that hurt my baby.  But it’s not that easy.

So instead, I realize my error in question.  I apologize to him.  I tell him he is right, I can’t know what it feels like.  But I can know how it feels to watch him feel.  To watch him hurt.

I promise to never let go, to always be in his corner.  And I promise to hold his heart. Wipe his tears.

And together we march on, we move forward.  We hope that we can win the next battle. We hope the war will end.

His pain.

He carries, I witness.