Everyone gets depressed. Most of us shake off the sadness and move on to a better day. But some don’t. They can’t find the light to escape the darkness. This coldhearted monster squeezes a vice grip onto their souls and never lets go.

My mother was depressed for the last 30 years of her life. She retired from living at the age of 48 after my father died. She sat at her kitchen table drinking one beer after another, trying to kill the pain brought on by years of his joblessness and chronic mental and physical illnesses.

Long ago, after Mom had passed, I heard a song that shot an arrow into my heart. The words to “In the Arms of the Angel” continued to play on so much in my brain that I wrote a journal about how they vividly described her suffering.

Spend all your time waiting

For that second chance

For a break that would make it OK

Mom spent nearly half her life waiting for relief that would never come. She had no willpower to get up from that kitchen table and get a new start. Despite the encouragement and love my sisters and I bestowed upon her, she had no energy to reclaim her spirit.

There’s always some reason

To feel not good enough

And it’s hard at the end of the day

I need some distraction

Oh, beautiful release

Memories seep from my veins

She drank, trying to drown the demons of abuse and dysfunction. Get that “beautiful release” from the grip they had on her life.

Let me be empty

Oh, and weightless, and maybe

I’ll find some peace tonight

Mom’s fuel tank was empty. She’d give two, maybe three-word answers to questions I’d ask. She was self-absorbed, locked inside a prison of her past. She was never in the present moment, and she had no vision of the possibilities her future might offer.

I’d take her to my house for dinner, and right after we ate, I could see she was uncomfortable. “Take me home,” she’d say, and I came to understand that she was having separation anxiety from her chair in the kitchen and the next can of beer that just might be the one that finally gives her an escape from reality.

In the arms of the angel

Fly away from here

And the endlessness that you fear

You are pulled from the wreckage

Of your silent reverie

You’re in the arms of the angel

May you find some comfort here

Mom got so bad, I kept wondering if I would open her back door one Sunday morning and I’d find her dead “from the wreckage.” Whatever it was that kept her breathing until the age of 75 is still a mystery to me.

So tired of the straight line

And everywhere you turn

There’s vultures and thieves at your back

The storm keeps on twisting

Keep on building the lies

That you make up for all that you lack

She was tired, so tired of the same life that awaited her every single morning. I tried to help her because she wouldn’t help herself, but her misery was her only comfort zone, and that’s where she felt safe “twisting” in the storm and lying to herself that it would take too much effort to become the woman she was 30 years ago.

It don’t make no difference

Escaping one last time

It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness

Oh, this glorious sadness

That brings me to my knees

She gave up everything to “this sweet madness.” She surrendered to the Army of the Black Cloud. She had lost her will. She couldn’t express love for her children. We cried in front of her many times, but as the song says, “it don’t make no difference.”

I have learned much about how I lost my mother to depression. It wasn’t fair for me to blame her because she was too weak to pick herself up off the floor. You hear stories of down and out people rebuilding their lives, and you think everyone who’s clinically depressed can push the restart button to a new life. That’s not so. Many succumb to this disease that steals away their desire to find happiness and joy.

The frustration I held onto for so many years is gone. I feel compassion and sympathy for Mom now. We think because we all feel sadness, we can empathize with someone who is overwhelmed with depression. We can’t. No one can realize another’s level of despair. No one can snap a finger and knock down the stone wall that this disease builds around the human heart.

I hold wonderful memories, not of my mother, but of her when she was my mom. She’s here in my mind, beautiful as ever with her long brown hair lying softly upon her shoulders. And she’s smiling. Right now, at this very moment, Mom’s smiling at me and I’m smiling at her.

She’s in the arms of an angel.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.