Embers Michael Markowski

Embers is a little difficult to put into words because it's partly about my dad's mental health, which has slowly been fading, and the grace that my mom has carried herself with even as her 29-year marriage also fades. My dad's condition didn't diminish overnight; unfortunately, it's been much more insidious than that, taking nearly ten years for anyone in our family to recognize (or admit) that something in him seems significantly different.

I don't want to share too much information here, because these issues are both incredibly personal and particularly complex, but I do want to say that it has been kind of interesting (for lack of a better word) to watch my mom and myself try to figure out the best way to try and help my dad. (I think it's important to note that he still doesn't recognize that his behaviors have changed, which makes professional diagnosis a challenge when therapy and counseling are generally only voluntary.)

And so we've loved and supported him as best we can, but I've recently realized that after all this time, my mom and I have spent a lot of time waiting waiting in sort of a hopelessly romantic way. We share the thought that maybe someday my dad will have a moment of self-realization where he says to himself, "you know, something doesn't feel quite right. Maybe I should get myself checked out."

But unfortunately, it's not usually that easy. My mom seems to keep saying, "we'll see what tomorrow brings," but waiting for new symptoms to arise in order to seek any kind of medical or psychological treat0ent feels a bit like purgatory. So now I figure that if I don't know how to help my dad, if I'm stuck somewhere between simply loving him and strong-arming him into counseling, maybe I can at least attempt to help myself and help my mom make some emotional sense of our situation by taking all these complicated feelings and expressing them in a piece of music.