Blog 3935 – 09.01.2026

Hope Versus Despair

For as long as I knew her, my mom fought against despair and depression. Hers was not a hopeful situation. As a teenager she had gotten pregnant unmarried, lost the twin boys shortly after they were born and married my father who had asked her to marry while she had been pregnant with twins though he was not the father. The reason he, little more than a stranger to her, had given when she sternly asked him why she should marry him, was because he wanted a home and she looked like she needed one. She proceeded for refuse him in no uncertain terms unconcerned about hurting his feelings.

Mom and her older sister had jobs in a downtown Chattanooga dime store that did not pay enough even together to afford to rent a place so they stayed with aunts till they wore out their welcome. Their dad had remarried after their mother died leaving him with four young children, my mom next to the youngest. He went on to father four more children by his second wife. Work was hard to find in the late forties early fifties South, so mom’s dad had relocated the family to Detroit, Michigan where he managed and took care the maintenance of a small apartment building. Mom’s oldest sister Katherine and she moved back and forth from Detroit to Chattanooga because there really wasn’t enough room for eight kids in her dad’s apartment. 

Mom and Katherine returned to Detroit where mom had and lost the twins. Afterwards they returned to Chattanooga, their dime store sales clerk jobs, and began again living with this or that aunt till they again wore out their welcomes. When they were down to the last aunt my mom looked up my dad and asked him if the offer still held. He said “yes” and then mom added a caveat, “Katherine comes too,” to which he replied, “okay.”

I wrote all that to explain my mother’s situation at eighteen years of age when she married my dad on February 9th, 1950. That November I was born and eighteen months later by brother was born. Mama loved her two boys. She never spoke of the twin boys she lost before us. My brother and I only learned of them when dad let mom’s secret slip once when we were preteens. She scolded him mercilessly for that transgression. He never mentioned the subject again nor she till the morning dad died. Alone with mom at the breakfast table I asked mom to tell me the story of how she and dad had met and married. She told me the story I just recounted above.

Three years after dad died. Mom took her own life with a pistol that dad had bought her for self-protection. As I said in the beginning my mom fought depression and despair for as long as I knew her. Instead of a half-full or a half-empty cup person my mom was more of a somebody stole my cup person. The old saying goes “hope springs eternal” to which I say only if we allow it. 

I have blogged more than once about how mothers and dads for better or worse set the expectations of a partner for their children. The old song lyric, “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear ole dad” says it best. Of the four lovely and loving women I married my last wife Linda Lee is the most like my mother. We have been married thirty-seven years. 

My dad was never able to make my mom happy. As a boy I was angry at him for that but as a man I came to understand that as much as we may love someone we are powerless to make anyone else happy. Happiness is a personal choice. Why, even the Constitution does just guarantee happiness just the right to pursue it. Happiest is, I think, only ever achieved by choosing hope over despair. We all face difficulties and problems. One of the saddest lines in the New Testament is where Paul was writing about some particularly stressing trials during which he almost despaired of living.

Four and a half years ago after a terrible and painful bout with shingles my wife had a psychic break and had to be wrestled to a nearby hospital for evaluation. After a week of testing her psychiatrist recommended transfer to a behavioral facility. After three weeks there and during the COVID lockdown they called for me to come get her. I had trouble convincing her to come home with me. After two weeks of listening to her argue with voices only she could hear, I called my son to help me again get her to a hospital. This time we took her to one of the more prestigious Houston hospitals in the Texas Medical Center. The doctors there ran all the same tests and the in the end refused to even make a diagnosis. I brought her home and have tried to make her as comfortable as possible these last four and a half years

A little over a week ago she fell in our home and broke her left hip. It took me all night to convince her to let me call 911 and have an ambulance take her to the hospital. They confirmed the broken hip with X-Ray and CT Scans. After five days in the hospital she was transferred to a rehabilitation center. Saturday morning I got a call saying she had fallen again and was being taken by ambulance to a Trauma Center in the Texas Medical Center. I rushed there and sat with her in a trauma room from 8am till 5:30am as they confirmed with X-ray and CT Scans that she was okay to transport back to the rehabilitation center.

I have, the last three days, visited the rehabilitation center morning noon and night to check on my wife. I was not permitted because of the COVID lockdown in February 2022 to see her at all during the three weeks she was confined to a behavioral facility. She has said to me more than once over the last four and a half years, “I will never forgive you for putting me in that place.”

I see that look in her eyes each time I visit her in the rehabilitation center. It is a withering look that I can only endure for a few minutes. Yesterday about 9am I stopped by to check on my wife and she was in the rehab exercise room. She was ecstatic to see me and hugged my neck. I think she thought I was coming to rescue her. She asked me to pull her back from the table they had her wheel chair parked close to. When I said that I could not that only her therapy lady could she said, “If you can’t help me. Just bring a gun.” Just like the girl that married dear ole dad.

Why, have I put all this down? To confirm my intentions to continue to hope for the best out come for my wife. Her therapist tried to comfort me by saying after surgery many patients are uncooperative and depressed. Depression can lead to despair. Staying focused on this present moment and trying our best to keep hope alive is the secret to staying sane in this crazy world.

“I make these an all my intentions for the highest and the best for the Universe, myself, and everyone everywhere.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White