The Truth about "The Wily Wind Gently Blew"

"The wily wind gently blew. Unknowingly did it caress the foliage with its moderate autumn warmth. All was silent, all was peaceful. The birds sang undisturbed their happy song. Numerous tiny animals with an never ending candour prepared for the cold season. But amidst this scene of natural tranquillity the black swans felt a slight discomfort because of an unidentified object afloat – still, it was inanimate so did not display any potential for danger. Bloated, floating, head down, arms and legs slightly spread – relaxed…Somehow it appeared to be at peace with not existing anymore…"

I have posted this on my other blog. It's the beginning of the last chapter of my novel "George Willoughby" and it is also the opening of another book which is a letter to my deceased mum.
On top of this blog I stated this is all about the undisguised me, without masks. The truth is the masks are still here...some aren't, but more fundamental ones are.
And this is part of me - who my mum was and what she has done is as vital a part of me as are my heart and lungs - it's shaped me as I am now and it continues to dominate my everyday life in a sometimes too intense manner. She had severe psychiatric problems. She became really ill, in the sense that from that moment in time she was prone to psychosis and deep depressions and could no longer function as a mum, a member of society, and sometimes even hardly as a human being, when I was 17 and left me alone and bewildered from that moment on. Not physically she left me, but she ceased being my carer and I had to fend for myself. How I found the courage and strength to make the decision to leave home and live on my own, I don't understand up to this day - though I never felt I had a choice. Life threw it at me and I had to follow the course it had chosen for me...however hard and difficult. How I then managed to graduate at uni I understand even less. But somehow I did, in the meantime always ready to help my mum and daily uplift her spirits, regularly visit her in the instituation or at home during the short periods she felt well enough to leave...
She had tried in the past...she once laid down on the rails waiting for a train to come and it did come, but by some miracle she survived without a scratch. She promised us she'd never attempt such a thing again, but deep in our hearts we knew the risk...and one day, when my eldest son was 1 yr old she did manage to annihilate herself in a most cruel and undeserving manner. First she tried drowning herself into the river, but was intercepted by a passer-by. Later that day, in the institution, she drowned herself in the bath-tub. There are scientists who say that that is physically impossible - it's not deep enough - your body always will come up and try and breathe, even if yr mind does not agree. But somehow her strength of will must have been enormous. I can't see a scene on television where someone is drowning...all goes blury...
The effect it has on me these days is that I can get really annoyed when people don't seem to understand or see the important things in life and secondly, that I feel like a child of my mum everyday...I am scared to death of becoming mentally ill myself - I've seen it so close-by, how devastating and heart-breaking it is for everyone involved - and who knows what I have inherited...and undoubtedly I never learned the basic skills to become a care-free and happy human being...I've never seen it and life can be very harsh...and to me it can be a real struggle on a daily basis...

I am more than this, obviously, but still it is a basic part that I rather hide....