Depression

Depression is an inexplicable thing.  No matter how hard you try to put your finger on its cause the answer eludes you.  Is it due to this or that event in my life?  Or is it the sum of these things.. the sum of a series of unfortunate events?  I think in my case I can discern a beginning, or perhaps an event after which nothing would be the same, a traumatic beginning.  Running through a doorway, discovering the prostrate form of my grandfather, discovering death and then trying to overcome it with whatever abilities I had.  Failing.  Calling on my God to come help me in my moment (the moment if there ever was one in that young life) of need.  The realization I was entirely alone.  Glancing down at once powerful arms now resting lifeless on the concrete floor and seeing a wristwatch still silently ticking off the seconds.  A growing fury inside me on seeing this watch... Eventually an ambulance arriving, then driving into the distance.  Then alone, returning home through the forest over moss-covered paths.  The bewildered looks on the faces of family as I walk through the house overturning chairs and tables on my way to the small sanctuary of my room.  "He's dead!" I yell at them.  "I couldn't help him!"  It was too late to say goodbye or anything else.  Tempus edax rerum- Time, devourer of all things.  All things fall to it, even the ancient gods.. and the ones we think we know.

What was the true beginning of this sum of events, this depressive condition?  Was it the shock of discovering death in place of my loving grandfather?  Was it the failure of a God I was led to believe could not fail, answered prayer, possessed omnipotence and so could act on His love for me, and so a discovery that death, or rather absence, stood also in the place of my God?  Was it my inability to revive a still warm body before me?  Was it the sound and feel of breaking bones during CPR?  Was it the taste of his mouth, the smell of his breath, and the sound of air escaping his lungs?  Was it the watch that dispassionately counted off the seconds even though its master could wind it no longer?  Was it the solitude of the aftermath, the walk through a living forest which was also under time's injunction?  It was of course the sum of these things.. and yet, except for perhaps this last which receives its power from the others, any one of them by themselves would have been enough.  So it may be the relationship of one to the other adds significance to these individual events and so to the sum.

The "sum" doesn't end with these events.. it is something one can calculate at any moment, but always a present moment.  Do we carry these things about like Sisyphus?  At what point can we release them and gaze at the valley below?  Perhaps the promise of a hilltop ensured that Sisyphus would continue to struggle.  Even after he realized there was no rest at the top, that he was doomed forever to bear his load to the heights, he did not let his weight slide instantly away to the bottom but continued to push the cursed rock.  Why didn't he simply let go?  I think the answer must be that it had nothing to do with rocks.