The Lost Notebook

Take a walk

I talked with my mom this evening. I phoned her to see how she was doing. It was a quiet Sunday morning in Japan. It was also a quiet, yet Saturday evening here. She has been suffering from depression for a while, and I try to call her whenever I find some time to do that. Just like the other times, she was constantly trying to finish up the conversation quickly and to hang up with me whenever I started asking how she was feeling. That indicated how bad she was doing. I wanted her to tell me what her worries are, what is making her sad, why she doesn't feel like doing anything, if she has seen any doctor for that deprerssion or sleeplessness. She would not tell me what is wrong with her, because telling her problems would only make me sad because I would not be able to do anything about it.

I changed the subject. Both my mom and I were going to feel more sad, talking about her problems, so, I said, "So, what do you want to do when you visit me here next month?" My parents, brother and his wife are planninng on coming here for a week in April. My boyfriend and I have been talking about what we should do, where we should take them, and things that they might enjoy. We were thinking about taking them to a country music live, because my dad loves country music. I was thinking about looking for flower gardens or something, because my mom and brother's wife loves flowers. We were also thinking about taking them to Nashville, where it's known for the origin of country music.
My mom's answer was surprising. She said, "We don't have to go anywhere special. I want to just go out to take a walk or something."

Take a walk...I went speechless. From all the way from Japan to USA, all she wants to do is to take a walk...? Then I realized she meant that. We used to go for a walk to the woods almost every Sunday morning when I was in Japan. Mom must really miss that. Something simple, which we never thought anything about then, became very special now. We can rarely do that anymore. We can only see each other once a year if we are lucky. Mom's answer made me feel sad than anything. She has to travel almost 24 hrs to take a walk with her own daughter.

I said to her, "Yes, we will definately go for a walk, we will do that." I was crying, and trying to hide it as much as possible. I didn't want her to know I was crying. Maybe, she was crying also. We both becamse quiet for a second.

We said a coulple more words after that, and I hung up the phone. All the tears that I was holding were coming down on my cheek. They were very salty.

Posted by Explorator at March 11, 2006 11:41 PM | TrackBack