That perhaps depression had swallowed Mom whole and wouldn’t let her come back up for air. Or maybe she didn’t love herself, and she was trying to figure out how to love me in the throes of that uncertainty but couldn’t. I don’t know what’s worse; not being able to breathe and parent, or not being able to love and parent. As a mother myself now, I understand that the things we grapple with in the thick of remorse and redemption can try to define us, ruin us, and mold us, for better or for worse.
