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On Suicide Watch

I cradled the phone close to my face and leaned against the wall to support my weakening knees. The sounds of my sister's voice came through the receiver with sharp, biting clarity.

"Mom's dead," she said. And those are the only words I heard that day.

I guess I always knew it would happen. She had been unhappy and depressed almost as long as I could remember. While I was growing up, she was in and out of the mental ward of the hospital so often it was like my second home. As a child, the hospital became my playground. I enjoyed riding in the elevators to the different floors, sitting in the pretty chapel and eating in the cafeteria, where they served tapioca pudding and offered a five-cent gumball machine.

It was an hour-long drive to the medical facility and I knew the route quite well. Every tree, building and road was etched in my little mind. Each trip was to either visit, drop off or pick up my mom along with her familiar pink suitcase. I remember the day she bought that suitcase. Like most little girls, I loved pink, and like most good moms, she wanted to make me happy. So she let me choose the color. At the time, I didn't realize how the frequent sight of that bright piece of luggage would eventually cause me to resent it and all it represented.

My first realization of Mom's illness came during her first hospital stay when I was in the second grade. It was also the first time in my life my mother wasn't there to help me get dressed for school, fix breakfast or make sure I got on the bus. My older sisters attempted to fill the role, but the pseudo-independent little mama's girl in me balked at the idea, wearing mismatched clothes and stubbornly pretending I could take care of myself. I'd have Count Chocula cereal for breakfasteven though my mom would have disapprovedand I'd pour it myself.

Once she did return, things were never really the same. She didn't joke as much as before or play the I-love-you-this-much game with me. At times we would get a glimpse of my old mom, but as the years went on she began to slide farther away. With each stay in the hospital she would lose a little more of herself.

My mom frequently made comments about killing herself. Since I was the youngest child, I usually spent more time with her and would tell her she couldn't do that to us. By the time I was 12, all my sisters were married and living away from home, which left me to deal with the situation by myself. If she went for a walk, I followed her to make sure

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