Now that it's been nearly seventeen years since I've lost my mom, it almost seems fitting to me that Mother's Day occurs in May every year, which also happens to be mental health awareness month. Of all the hardships that I've endured in my lifetime, the untimely death of my mother ranks at the top among the most difficult to overcome, without a doubt. It was especially hard for me because I was nineteen at the time and too young to understand how this kind of tragedy can impact my mental health.
It was a chilly November day in 2005. I was rummaging around my apartment not too far from my college campus getting ready to go to work. My two friends and roommates, Sean and Hugh, were on campus consumed with their studies, so I was alone when there was a knock on the door. When I answered I saw my dad standing there. Because of the look in his eyes and the fact that he showed up unannounced, I could tell right away that something was wrong. He began crying, hugged me, and told me that mom had died that morning. I don't remember a whole lot of how the rest of that night went. I remember being in too much shock to cry. I remember gathering clothes and other items and throwing them into a bag and riding back to my hometown with my dad in the backseat of my aunt's boyfriend's car. He drove and kept pretty quiet while my dad and I attempted to console each other. I knew my mom had a drinking problem. It started late in my high school years. She was what could arguably be described as a functioning alcoholic. She hid her drinking well and I was too young to fully understand the devastating effects that it was having on her body. Perhaps I was in some denial as well. She always liked to drink, but for reasons that I still don't know to this day, her drinking got out of hand when I was around sixteen years old. Sadly, for my mom, there was no chance at ever getting help for her problem. She died in the early hours of November 10th, 2005 in her sleep. The cause was organ failure due to excessive drinking. My sister, who was sixteen at the time, found her lifeless body in her bed when she was getting ready to go to school that morning.
The next several months subsequent to her passing felt like a haze. After the funeral and spending time with my family, I returned to college a week later. You would think that I would go to therapy or quit drinking given what I had just been through. You think I did that? Absolutely not. Instead I tried to go about my life like nothing happened and that everything was fine. My friends were worried about me. They were spooked by how normal I was acting and how I would casually mention the fact that my mom just died with very little emotion. People repeatedly asked me how I was able to be so nonchalant about the situation. My response was always "it happened. It's over, I can't do anything about it. So why be upset?". I kept partying, I kept drinking, and I kept trying to live a normal life even though I knew my life was anything but normal. That summer I had a full time summer job that I liked. My dad, sister, and I took a trip to Hawaii with my aunt and uncle. But something was strangely amiss. It almost felt like I was dreaming. Like I was there, but I wasn't there. Looking back now, I think this was the result of my nineteen year old brain trying to get over the shock of an unexpected tragedy. That next year at Western, my roommates and I moved into a house with two more of our buddies. The partying and getting hammered every weekend continued as if nothing had happened. It was around December of 2006, during my junior year of college when things took a turn. My reality was no longer hazy and I now began to feel a different kind of energy in the air. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but I felt like I was being watched. Not necessarily being spied on or stalked, but watched. Of course, I concealed all of my feelings from my friends and family. On the surface, everything was fine. I was just another college kid at Western whose only cares in the world were passing my classes, making it to work on time, and finding a good party. But I now had this underlying feeling that someone was watching me. There were times when I felt okay and other times when I felt scared. I began questioning everything I had done in my life up to that point. Was I a good person? Was I doing the right thing? I'm not a very religious guy but I began wondering if I died would I go to Heaven or Hell. All I knew was that my thinking was becoming clearer and I became more aware of the decisions I was making and how they affected others. I wasn't a bad guy, I was a typical college kid. But I began to realize that the universe had other plans for me than being a typical college kid. Halfway through my junior year I joined a business fraternity, made a lot of new friends, and had more exposure to the business world. I began treating people with more understanding and compassion. I started making smarter choices. As the year went on and all these things happened I gained a new perspective on what was happening. I wasn't being watched, someone was looking out for me. It could have been my mom, or someone else up there. But someone was watching out for me, that was for sure. It almost felt like a warning sign to not go down the wrong path.
Life became simpler once I understood what was going on. I began to realize what was important in life and things took on a new meaning. The biggest takeaways were don't take things for granted, and you only have one life, don't waste it. My senior year of college turned out to be my best of all four of the years. I'd been through a horrific tragedy, gone through several phases of grieving, and adopted a new mindset. I still went to parties and bars when I was a senior, but it wasn't until then that I really began to appreciate the social aspect of partying. Instead of seeing how drunk I could get I began seeing partying as an opportunity to socialize, strengthen the relationships I had with my friends, and create new friendships. I discussed my mom's death frequently with other people, and talking about it made me feel at peace. Instead of chasing girls like I had in the past, I looked forward to just having conversations with them. In my earlier college years I'd show up to parties dressed to impress in nice clothes, but at this point I would come home from work at 11:30 PM and show up to house parties in a hoodie, gym shorts, and flip flops. I would still have a few beers, but I was more interested in socializing than seeing how much beer I could drink. In other words, I was doing what I wanted, making smarter decisions, and living my best life up to that point. I made a lot of great friendships in my business fraternity (shout out to Delta Sigma Pi), made friends with the people I worked with at my restaurant job, had a great spring break trip to South Padre Island with my friends, I smoked cigarettes for a little while but eventually kicked them, I did decently in my classes, and ultimately I graduated in June of 2008. By the time I left Western, my heart was full. At twenty-two years old I still wasn't very knowledgeable about mental health. I hadn't been to a single therapy session or taken a single anti-depressant pill. Perhaps some mental heath treatment would have done me good back then, but who knows. I'll admit that it wasn't healthy of me to conceal my feelings from my friends and pretend like my life was totally normal in the months after my mom's passing, but I have absolutely no regrets. I wouldn't change one damn thing about how things happened. They played out the way they did, and I felt that by the time I returned home from college, my mental health as I knew it had improved tremendously and it was as good as it could have been at that time. And that was before I discovered running...
Speaking of running, the Bishop High Sierra 50-Miler is next weekend! I'm really looking forward to this race. Running, especially running ultramarathons through nature has been a major component of improving my mental health over the years, but we'll get into that in a different blog story. Most people don't know where the town of Bishop is or anything about it. I can't say I blame them. It's a small town of around 3,500 people that lies sandwiched between the foothills of the Eastern Sierras and the Nevada Border in the Owen's Valley region of Eastern California. The views of the mountains from the town are breathtaking. While most of the town is residential, the main street that dissects the small downtown area features an eclectic mix of family owned restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, bars, motels, and outdoor activity stores. Given that the town also serves as a gateway to Mammoth Lakes and other resort areas further up highway 395, there are also several gas stations, fast food restaurants, and big chain grocery and drug stores on the town's main street. Let's talk about getting to Bishop. From Sunnyvale, it's about a six-and-a-half hour drive that involves driving past Pinecrest on highway 108 and up over Sonora Pass, then south on the 395. It's a beautiful drive through the California mountains and wilderness and something that I'm looking forward to as part of the adventure. Sam will be spending a long weekend next weekend in New Orleans with some of her girlfriends celebrating a bachelorette party, so this will be a solo trip. Her flight leaves early in the morning on Friday so I'll be dropping her off at the airport on my way out to Bishop. Even though she won't be drinking because we're expecting our little dude in just a few short months, I'm happy that she's getting the opportunity to go on this trip. She's been putting in a lot of work over the last several months, not to mention she's been growing a kid. She deserves to have a fun weekend with her friends in the jazz and shrimp capital of America. Lastly, let's talk about the race. I ran the 100K race in 2019 as a final training run for Tahoe Rim Trail 100, so I at least have the advantage of having been on the course in the past. I successfully finished The Canyons 100K a few weeks ago and I gotta say, those climbs kicked my ass. Having run the Bishop High Sierra ultras before, I can say that this race, although still a long distance, is more gentle on the body than Canyons. There is about 8,800 feet of climbing, most of the course is at around 8,000 feet of elevation, and the terrain is composed mainly of jeep roads that cut through the Eastern Sierras. Most of the course is above tree line, and therefore is pretty exposed with little shade to hide in. The forecast for next Saturday is looking like lots of sunshine with a low of forty-five degrees and a high of around eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit. It'll be a warm day, so I'll need to remember to stay hydrated out there. It'll hopefully be a great day and I'm looking forward to a weekend trip back in Bishop.
Since it's mental health awareness month, I'd like to say that I'm grateful that I finally made the decision at thirty-one years old in 2018 to go into therapy. I've been seeing my therapist for four years now and it's done wonders for my mental well being. I can't think of a better way to acknowledge mental health awareness month than by thinking of my mom on Mother's Day, running an ultramarathon in a beautiful place, and writing blog posts about my life. Hopefully I come back from Bishop with a fun race report to write!
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