My Mother is ill. Very ill. Over the years, she has risen back up to survive. Through a number of silent heart attacks and a massive heart attack, through knee replacements, through suffering dangerously high levels of blood sugar as a result of badly controlled diabetes, and dangerously low levels of iron, she has always claimed to be “fine,” and she has always survived. She has always managed to rise up.

When I was born, the story was the same. She suffered a fever after giving birth. She was ill. Very ill. The hospital separated her from me. They treated her fever and multiple infections. They put me in my father’s arms, and he, who had always looked to my mother for support, had no idea what to do with a bundle of squirming baby limbs. He had no idea how to soothe me. He had no idea how to stop my crying. When they sent my mother home, days after my Father had already taken me home from the hospital, she was still weak. And yet, she began to take care of my father again, holding space for him, reassuring him that all was well. So, too, she began to take care of my sister who was only three years-old. So like my mother and generations of mothers before her on that side of the family, as an infant I learned how to demand little, how to cry very little. They say that I learned to walk early, though, and I would add that I learned falling was about pretending the fall never happened. They also say I didn’t speak until I was two years-old. I don’t remember learning how to say, “I’m fine,” but I’m sure it’s one of the first things I learned.

Today, my mother fell, but this time was different. She couldn’t get back up. The cause of the fall doesn’t matter. What matters is that she accepted for the first time that she could not get back up, and yet still she refused help. My father, also elderly and also severely debilitated, just happened to pass by and see my mother on the ground. And though he tried, my father could not lift her to her feet. On the ground, she looked like me so many years ago: she was a body and limbs silently squirming for attention. It was not until my sister arrived at the scene that they finally managed to get my mother off the ground.

I did not fall today. I’m not in danger of falling. But I’m in danger of saying I’m fine. I’m in danger of telling everyone around me that all is well, that I don’t need any help to get by. I’m in danger of telling others so many lies because I’m afraid of admitting I’m just human.

What would my relationship with my mother have been like had she let us lift her up a long time ago? What would my relationship with myself have been like had I been able to trust the truth: that others love freely and will support us when we are weak? What would my life and hers have been like if we realized rising up with help didn’t make us weak?