It was this time of year, two years ago, that my mom started spiraling into a depression. We talked on the phone almost every day (still do) and I could hear it happening, in her voice. What she was saying was that she was okay, that she was fighting it, that she was still able to sleep some and she was sure she'd be fine. But her voice got weaker and sadder each day. I should have taken the signs more seriously, but I guess I really wanted to believe what she was saying, to believe that she would be fine.

This went on for a month. She fought it for a month. Then she stopped being able to sleep altogether, and she told me the last week of February that if she didn't start sleeping at night, she was going to have to stop working. Take sick days until she could sleep again. She just wasn't functioning well, she said. And I remember encouraging her to keep going, to at least make it through the rest of the week and maybe she would be able to regain sleep during the weekend. It was a selfish thing to say, and even as I said it I knew that it was. But I was so afraid of what taking off work meant. My mom never misses work, and for her to even consider taking some time off felt to me like she was giving up. And I couldn't stand the thought of her giving up.

She struggled through the week. I called each evening to check on her. Friday evening she told me that she'd left work that day at noon. That she just couldn't do it anymore. That she'd told her supervisor she didn't know when she'd be back. I'd never heard her voice so flat, so empty, so tiny, although in the months to come it only became more so.

When she finally let go of work, she gave up entirely. Which is what I had feared would happen, although I knew it wasn't her fault, that this wasn't the sort of thing I should expect her to fight on her own. When I called the next day, Dad was the one who answered the phone. Dad never answers the phone. His voice sounded a lot like mine - straining to be upbeat with the kind of hopefulness that comes from denial, like maybe if we talk an octave higher than usual and say really positive things with a phony smile on our faces then maybe this will just GO AWAY. I asked to talk to Mom and the hollowness of her hello told me that this was not going to just go away.

It didn't. Nothing seemed to help. Her doctor appointments weren't helping, the meds weren't helping, our pep talks weren't helping. Dad and I started taking shifts during the day to stay with her. We never discussed why we were doing this, but it was because we shared an unspoken concern of what might happen if we left her alone. She wasn't getting out of bed at this point and she only ate if we made her. Dad's technique was to be firm with her, to tell her she HAD to eat, as if she were a child. I couldn't handle the role reversal, couldn't handle mothering my own mother. So I played the daughter card and told her it would make me so happy if she would please eat this sandwich I'd made - I basically guilted her into eating. The fact that she went along with it assured me that deep down she still loved me more than anything.

There was a moment one day that I have tried to forget but I can't. She was lying in bed with her eyes closed; I was sitting next to the bed. I knew she wasn't sleeping because she was utterly unable to sleep. But she was lying so still. I watched her, waiting for her to shift slightly or for her eyelids to flutter or for her hand to move. Anything. But she remained absolutely still except for the almost imperceptible movement of her chest as she breathed. Her face was placid and held no sign of the suffering or the personality that I knew were behind her eyes. It was like she wasn't in there. And before I could stop it, I caught myself thinking, "This is how she will look at her funeral." My eyes welled up but I continued to stare at her through the blur. I wish I had been able to look away because that image is now burned in my mind and I hate it.

We took her to the hospital the next day. She had been admitted for depression once before, years ago, and after she had recovered she told us that the hospital had been hell for her. She hated it. And so this time Dad and I had been avoiding it, dreading the thought of putting her there against her will, hoping we could save her from having to go through that again. She had somehow convinced her doctor to let her keep trying at home. But finally, on this afternoon, she looked at me and said, "If [her doctor] saw me like this, he would admit me." She was giving me guidance, despite her condition. And she was giving me permission. To this day I am grateful to her for that. I called Dad at work and told him to come home so we could take her to the hospital. He sounded relieved, and hearing that in his voice immediately eased the guilt I was feeling over the fact that this was now the best day I'd had in weeks.

After we got her settled into her hospital room, we were asked to leave while she had a psych consultation. We wandered down to the patient lounge. Dad walked over to the window and I followed him and put my hand on his shoulder. When he turned to look at me his face was contorted into an expression of pain and then, suddenly, he was sobbing.

I only cried in private. To cry in front of Mom would have been to add to the guilt she was already feeling about the situation. And when I was with Dad, we were busy scheduling appointments with doctors and planning dinner and visiting Mom in the hospital and fielding phone calls from relatives and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for my brother. I grieved a lot in the beginning, although soon I became so preoccupied with the details that I was mostly numb to the larger picture. But I remember coming home after visiting her in the hospital one evening - she had been in there for weeks with no improvement. As I pulled into the garage, it occurred to me for the first time that maybe she wouldn't ever get better. No one at the hospital was hopeful about her anymore; the entire staff seemed resigned. And I sat in the car and sobbed. I don't know how long I cried before I realized that Rob was standing outside the passenger door, trying to get in. I fumbled with the unlock button and in one swift movement he was in the seat next to me, crushing me against him.

Of course she got better. Maybe I shouldn't say of course - I shouldn't assume that depression always has a recovery. I definitely don't take my mom's recovery for granted. There are even things she does that have always annoyed me but that I now find myself glad for because they are so her and it is so good to have her back, completely. This month we've been working out together, and I find myself watching her. I soak in her exuberance and I can't help but compare the woman I see in front of me to the woman who was lying deathly still in bed. And then the whole process, this whole post plus some, replays in my mind - vignettes flash by and their associated emotions no sooner overcome me than they're replaced with the next set. I relive the entire experience within a matter of seconds. And then I catch her eye and smile. I am so grateful.