Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair. Rick Warren
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/despair-quotes

Background: 

There was one place I knew I could go, feel comfortable, safe, protected, that was my maternal grandparents home.

They lived in the rural area around Essex, Ontario.  This was before cable tv, video games, computers, etc., They didn’t have a television, yet I loved spending my days there. I called it my second home.

While my grandfather was living it was not uncommon for him to take out the guitar and practice, sometimes teaching me along with my two aunts a new song or just practice an old song.  Grandpa came from a musical family.  His mother played the piano, his one brother played the Dobro guitar.  When grandpa died in 1975 it left a vacuum in the music.

Now Granny, that’s what we called her never worked out of the house.  She raised seven children.  She always had canned fruit for the winter time, she sewed, knitted, crocheted, and was a terrific baker.  She welcomed everybody and always offered them a coffee, and if there was some baking that too.  I always knew and felt safe bringing my friends over to her place.

When I moved west I tried to call her often sometimes once a week.  If I needed to know how to do something, like baking, I could ask her for the instructions.  She taught me how to bake pies, apple pies basically.  It was that skill that I won first prize at the Hometown Fair here in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Forward to 2004, the grandmother I loved passed away.  I was not able to go home for her home going.  I remember standing in front of my kitchen sink sobbing uncontrollably.

That started to take the will to live right out of me.  I barely ate anything, lost lots of weight.  I started on a downward spiral.

Some days I was awake with little to no sleep, other times I spent almost days on end barely getting out of bed.

I sank far down into the dark abyss, started thinking about suicide to the point I asked my best friend to take all the food from my freezer.  It took him a bit of time before he realized what was happening with me.  I just didn’t want to live in a world without my mother, and now my grandmother.

I cannot tell you how I ended up in the emergency ward facing an intake worker from the Mental Health Department.

I found myself in strange surroundings, around a different group of people, no idea what was going on, not knowing what was expected of me.  Not sure for how long I stayed to myself sitting in a corner of the common room.

Now here I was a nurse handing me medications, didn’t know what they were, didn’t know what they did.

I was asked one day to meet my Psychiatrist.  Cannot recall what we talked about, how long we talked.  I do remember after that being given a bunch of cognitive tests.

I had reached the total end of my despair.  Now it would mark the beginning of my long tedious road out of the rabbit hole I was in!