The Cub in the Water

WHAT THE FUDGE?

Getting back, put things in kind of a phantom zone. It was as if everything moved slowly and fast at the same time. At first, my mom seemed to be handling things as well as she could be expected to. I mean sure she looked sad and wasn't her usual outgoing self, but she was loving and caring. She woke up early in the morning, made breakfast, prepared my daily lunch and made sure I had money to spend in the school cafeteria in case I needed anything.

While I'm sure she was dealing with everything that meant not having Phillip around, I was dealing with my own stuff too. I spent a couple of months depressed and in a funk so deep I couldn't see the exit. I became obsessed with the whole "someday I'm going to die" thing that it made it impossible for me to move on.

I spent every waking minute obsessing about how it would be like to die. How it would feel to disappear into the nothingness. I heard or felt my heartbeat and got scared to my very core by the idea that one day it would not be there anymore. Every time I played a videogame I wondered what it would be like to be one of the characters in it and never die as you are preserved in the system forever. I looked at objects and figured that they would still be around long after we are gone. Even if I tried, I couldn't think about anything else. I preferred being asleep rather than awake since in my sleep I could feel normal.

The only thing that calmed my nerves a little were movies. They gave me some sort of comfort as I watched the characters in them live a normal life or at least a life where they were not constantly and daily worried about their own mortality. My go-to movie was, Meet the Parents. Seeing Ben Stiller trying to impress Robert Deniro's and failing every time was good entertainment.

I was a wreck. However, returning to my daily routine helped a lot. I thought about death less often as the days went by. I got engaged in school activities and found comfort in the company of my friends. It wasn't too long before they noticed the changes in my mood and my smile. I guess I wasn't paying too much attention, because one day I was caught by surprise.

I was with Viola Dent and Aileen Lara - who had been with me since elementary - getting some stuff from our English classroom for a painting project in which we had to paint a canvass for our spring festival to cover the magnificent McKenzie School's castle- which had been standing since the Mexican Revolution.

While we were getting the material, I started to sing,

"I could stay awake just to hear you breathing

Watch you smile while you are sleeping

While you're far away dreaming

I could spend my life in this sweet surrender

I could stay lost in this moment forever

Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure..."

"Are you singing?" Aileen asked intrigued. Before I could open my mouth, she concluded, "Oh my God! You are singing!"

I looked at her with a confused expression, "Well yeah, what's exciting about that? I'm always singing."

"No. You haven't sung in a loooong time," Viola added, pushing her glasses up her very pale refined nose.

"You must be feeling better," said Aileen with a smile that appeared on her milky white face showing all her dental braces. "I'm glad. Welcome back, Mia."

I smiled. She was right. I guess I was feeling better. I was beginning to feel a little bit like myself again.

Unfortunately, it wasn't working that way for everyone. As time passes I guess you expect people who are going through some kind of difficult situation to feel and do better. In my mom's case, it was quite the opposite. It might have been because I was too busy focusing on what I had going on that I never saw it coming.