Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

by Susan Cain

Over time, I learned to mistrust the cease-fires. I started to approach our house after school with a stomachache, grew skilled at gauging her mood the moment I entered. I felt I mustn’t do anything to upset her equilibrium or trigger her rage. I became more aware of her childhood sorrows and of her present, gaping maw of emptiness. I started to dream of escape—of the day I’d go to college and be free of her. But I also longed to stay. She was still my mother. And I wanted desperately, more than I’ve ever wanted anything before or since, to fill the chasm inside her, to take away her hurt. I couldn’t think of my mother’s tears—which I often caused—without crying myself. As the youngest child, I mattered so much to her, I mattered too much, I mattered like the sun. To grow up was to condemn her to darkness.