The Water Didn’t Keep Her

My mother always talked about her death.

Sometimes she even tried speeding it up.

For a long time, I thought she was doing it for attention. I thought she wanted everyone to stop what they were doing, look at her, panic over her, prove they cared.

I didn’t understand yet that wanting attention and needing help aren’t the same thing.

I understand that now.

But understanding it does not erase what it did to us.

Because no matter what she was searching for, my sister and I were usually the ones left standing in the aftermath.

We were the ones watching.

The ones trying to help.

The ones expected to keep living normally after death had been dragged into the room again.

Water has always been my happy place.

The beach especially.

Something about standing near that much water makes everything inside me feel quieter. The waves are loud enough to cover up my thoughts, but never loud in a way that scares me. They don’t demand anything. They don’t ask me to explain myself. They just keep moving.

I have always loved that.

Maybe that is why I remember Galveston so clearly.

I was around twelve when we took the trip.

It should have been one of those memories people keep because it was fun. A family vacation. Sand in the car. Wet bathing suits hanging over chairs. Beach days and sunburns and everybody arguing about where to eat.

Normal family things.

Instead, I remember my mother walking into the water.

Not to swim.

Not to cool off.

To disappear.

My sister had to go after her.

She pulled her back out while I watched, probably not understanding everything and somehow understanding all of it at the same time.

Then my mother said it was because of us. She didn’t mean that but she did want to disappear  

I don’t remember every word. Maybe my brain was kind enough to throw some of them away.

But I remember the meaning.

She wanted to die, and somehow we were supposed to carry the reason.

That is a strange thing to hand a child.

A mother’s life is already too heavy for a kid to hold.

A mother’s death is impossible.

After that, the beach was no longer just the beach.

The water had a second meaning now.

It was still beautiful, but it also became the place where my mother had tried to leave us.

That was not the only time.

There was the time she slit her wrists in front of us.

My sister had to bandage her.

My sister, who was also just a kid, had to become the person stopping the bleeding.

There should have been someone older taking control, calling for help, protecting us from seeing any of it.

Instead, my sister wrapped her wounds while I watched another moment become something we would never be able to unsee.

Then there was the gun.

My dad’s gun.

My mother took it and tried to use it on herself.

My dad fought her for it while my sister and I stood there watching.

The gun went off.

The bullet went through the pocket of my dad’s shorts.

I still think about how many different endings that moment could have had.

A slight change in angle.

A hand slipping.

A body moving at the wrong second.

One tiny difference and someone could have died directly in front of us.

Maybe my father.

Maybe my mother.

Maybe one of us.

But the bullet missed flesh, so I guess everyone was supposed to move on.

That was how things worked in our house.

If nobody died, then apparently nothing serious had happened.

There was no room for what almost happened.

No room for the fear that stayed behind.

No room for two little girls who had just watched their parents fight over a loaded gun.

The adults survived the moment, so the children were expected to survive the memory.

For years, I called it attention-seeking.

It made me angry.

Sometimes it still does.

There is a particular kind of anger that comes from watching someone threaten to leave you over and over, then blame you for making them want to go.

It teaches you that love can become a hostage situation.

It teaches you to constantly scan the room.

To watch people’s hands.

Their tone.

Their breathing.

To notice where the pills are.

Where the knives are.

Where the guns are.

To listen for crying behind closed doors.

To wonder whether every argument might become the final argument.

You become afraid of silence because silence might mean something has happened.

You become afraid of noise because noise might mean something is about to.

And somehow, in the middle of all of it, you are still expected to do your homework.

Still expected to go to school.

Still expected to act normal.

I know now that my mother was hurting.

I know pain can make people dangerous, even when the person they are trying to destroy is themselves.

I know she may not have fully understood what those moments were doing to us.

But children do not experience intentions.

They experience what happens.

We experienced blood.

We experienced water.

We experienced a gunshot.

We experienced being told that our mother wanted to die because of us.

Sometimes I feel guilty for being angry with her now that she is gone.

Death has a way of trying to turn people into saints.

But love does not require lying.

Missing someone does not mean rewriting what happened.

Understanding her pain does not mean pretending she did not pass it down to us.

She needed help.

She also hurt us.

Both things are true.

Maybe that is the hardest part.

There is no simple villain here.

Just a sick woman, two scared daughters, and a father trying to stop a gun from going off.

Just a family learning to call disaster normal because disaster kept surviving itself.

And somehow, after all of that, I still love the water.

She did not manage to take that from me.

The ocean is still where I feel calm.

I still want to stand at the edge and let the waves swallow every sound except themselves.

Maybe that is why I keep going back.

Maybe every time I stand near the water, I am returning to the place where she once tried to disappear and choosing to remain.

Maybe I am proving that the water does not only belong to that memory.

It belongs to me too.

The water did not keep her.

And somehow, it did not take me either.