Trifextra: Mother

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Trifextra writing challenge:

This weekend’s Trifextra is the first of its kind.  This weekend we only need 32 words from you, because we’re giving you the 33rd.  Your challenge is to write anything you want, in whichever form you please, so long as your response is exactly 33 words and includes the word “mother.”

She didn’t mean to let go. “Get down from there. You are such a fucking drama queen.” Hollow eyes turned toward us. Mother was a good climber. She wouldn’t have just let go.

I’d just like to take this moment to say that life is hard. Every character in my little story is hurting, they just are expressing it differently. A few moths ago a childhood friend’s husband killed himself. Leaving a wife and three kids. This Trifextra brought in the possibility of abuse, but a lot of suicides are more about things going on inside the victim’s thoughts than any external pressure.

I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but this subject is too real to ignore. A lot of kids are hurting because they lost a parent this way. They justify, rationalize, and when all else fails, they blame themselves.  It is possible also to be there, without really being there, for your own kids or other loved ones. I struggle with this. I don’t want them to grow up thinking I just let go. Maybe this mother’s day we can all love where we are and however we can. Love is worth hanging on for right?

42 thoughts on “Trifextra: Mother”

  5. So sorry for you and your friend. Life and death are so damn complicated. My hope for peace for your friend, her kids and wishing you the strength to be able to help where you can.

    • Thank you. Her situation was strange…the suicide was not the worst thing that could have happened. He was just already gone in a way, and at least didn’t take anyone else with him, but it is still a father, a husband. Maybe he could have gotten better. Choices made out of painful circumstances seem to always leave unanswered questions for everyone involved.

  6. Life can kick you in the nu… pants, with no warning at all. I am sorry. Not to be insensitive, but I kept seeing things about the trifexctra on Ed Hotspurs blog, but I don’t know the rules. Where do we do them, on our own blog? I need details.

    • Yes, you do the challenge on your own blog, and link it to Trifecta’s. If you click the word Trifecta at the top of this post, it will take you to their site with the rules and challenges. They have one challenge for the weekend (trifextra) and the weekly one (trifecta).

  8. On a side note, when REM shot this video it was in San Antonio, and I was pissed because I had to find a different way to work 🙂

  9. We know of a preacher with a wife and young children who committed suicide about a year ago. His congregation was shocked, as was his family, of course. You never know what’s going on inside a person. And you can’t assume certain people are immune to pain or depression. Thank you for sharing your story.

    • Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, this comment got spammed for some reason. Sorry to hear about that. You are so right, you can never truly tell what’s going on, and often it seems like those who look the most pulled together on the outside are broken inside.

  10. Hobbler,
    Thank you for posting that video, too. It’s a great reminder that Michael Stipes was always ugly.
    Le Clown

  12. 3 years ago, the husband of a friend and father to 7 children committed suicide. She has since remarried, but they still (the family and the new husband) recognize the day. She’s also got part of her website dedicated to him, and they all agree that the man who took his life was not the same mand they loved. She and her husband were two who created a new last name from both of their names when they married, to commemerate their joining of lives, and to give their children a unique last name; to mark their place in the world. Sad, all the way around.

  17. I am so sorry for your friend and her family. My .. Tom’s not my uncle .. he’s my uncle’s best friend. He’s the guy my grandparents took in two days after my uncle died falling off a cliff (only falling – bad enough, but given the topic and where I’m ultimately going, I should emphasize, no suicide here) and they day after Tom’s grandparents died after being hit by a train. (Bam bam.) They’d known Tom all their lives, and it seemed natural for them to need each other and fill that gap. But anyway, Tom was being raised by his grandparents because both of his parents had killed themselves, his mother about a year after his father. He was an orphan in the truest sense of the word when he came to my grandparents. He was an adult. They never formally adopted him. But I’ve always known him as my uncle.

    Tom himself has done pretty well considering, by the way. But yes, I absolutely see the value in your message.

    • Wow, that is so sad. It is amazing that ge is still okay. There seem to be some people who can just cope with a lot. I don’t think I would be that strong. Thank you for sharing and understanding.

  18. Sometimes the pain is just so strong & all encompassing, you only want it to stop no matter how it stops. I’ve been so close to the edge a few times I can sympathize with those who don’t find something to cling to & bring them back. It’s so hard on the people left behind.

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