The Edge

When I was younger, my mom would sometimes drive us up to Lover's Leap on Sugarloaf Mountain. She wouldn't talk a lot on the way up there, she'd just drive around the winding access road and smoke. Her energy was always twitchy, but on these trips, I would find myself being extra nervous. I always assumed it was because I had some PSTD connected with heights and winding roads, but maybe there was more to it than that.

When we'd reach our destination, she would park the car and get out. She would order me to be quiet. Then she'd walk to the edge and just stand there for a while. I would never go near it because it scared me, so I never saw her expression. I have no idea what she was thinking about.

Maybe she was just trying to find some solitude. It's possible the view calmed her down in a way nothing else would. Maybe she found it romantic because people had died there together, or so the story goes. She was never much of the romantic type, but everyone has their kicks.

Was she thinking about jumping? Maybe. In my darker moments, I've considered it. Actually one of my ways to get me OUT of being suicidal is to think about jumping and those last moments when everything is just peaceful because you know soon it will end and there is not one damned thing you can do anymore. That kind of chemical release is usually enough to flood out the despair that got me to feeling suicidal anyway.

I would have never blamed my mom for ending her life. I never hold that against anyone. I do, however, take issue with the idea of her driving her small child up there with here and possibly killing herself.

This is how twisted my relationship was with my mother. I can actually SEE her doing that as a kind of dark revenge against me. Go up there with this burden of a kid she hated, jump off the cliff, and leave the kid to panic and try to fend for herself. Who knows who long I would have been up there before someone even found me.

God. If Mom was suicidal at the time, the perverse joy of my fear and suffering was probably enough to wash the despair out of her and help her to go on. The concept of my terror-filled wailing and vulnerability probably saved her countless times in the early days.