Night, Mother

Jessie’s entire life was dominated by undiagnosed illness and by her mother’s attempts to control and mitigate that illness. Her depression seems to stretch back into childhood. Jessie tells her mother about seeing a photo of herself as an infant, when happiness was simple. Crying would bring her mother to meet her needs and make her happy again. Jessie describes the transition from that child to the person she has become as a type of loss. Her depression manifested as a sense of isolation and apathy, which her mother couldn’t truly comprehend. Thelma saw Jessie’s affinity for her father as a rejection of her as both a mother and a wife. However, Jessie appreciated the quiet moments with her father, who likely had the same depression, because his presence didn’t require her to open up or mask her feelings of alienation.

From the time that Jessie had the first of her seizures at age five, Thelma covered them up. According to Thelma, they became more subtle during Jessie’s school years. Despite their severity, however, Jessie’s entire life was marked by a disorienting loss of control over her body with no conscious understanding of the underlying physical cause.