She was the strongest person I'll ever know. I don't have appropriate words to describe my mother. It wasn't that she was determined, because that implies an overall plan of action. She just kept going. I wouldn't call it perseverance, because that invokes the idea that eventually she prevailed. She didn't; she just kept going. She was not quite persistent or tenacious, and certainly not resolute or steadfast. She woke up every day and did what had to be done all day long, no matter how difficult or unfair or unpleasant. She was not energetic or particularly positive or even hopeful. She just kept going. When the car broke down on the side of the road, she walked with the groceries in her arms. When the electricity was shut off for a week, she heated my bath water on a Coleman stove in the kitchen and carried it to the tub. When my chronically unemployed father couldn't put food on the table, she visited the local food pantry in the next town as often as t...

September and October were given mostly to anxiety . By November depression had set in, but I didn't recognize it for what it was. Instead I blamed the stress of my little girl's first birthday party, or the chaos of those relentless months with so many celebrations to attend and gifts to buy, or the inevitable disappointment that the holidays hold as I try to recapture some feeling of happiness I never quite got my fingers around as a child. I kept thinking if I could just get over the next hurdle, I'd start feeling better. Any day now. Any. Day. By January I was too tired to fight with it anymore. It followed me from room to room in my house. I went to sleep with it and woke up with it. Finally I called my psychiatrist and asked her for a change in my medication. I'm no stranger to recurrent, severe depression. Note I don't use those words lightly -- I actually read them once on my medical chart. "Major depressive disorder, recurrent, severe +...