[Content Warning: Mental health, bipolar disorder]
There was this prompt I came across on Mountain Beacon, asking, “What keeps you going?” Immediately, I thought of that classic line, *“Para kanino ka bumabangon?”*—you know, from that Nescafe commercial that always hit a little too close to home. But somehow, my mind twisted it, as minds sometimes do, into *“Para kanino ka nagpupuyat?”* Because if I’m honest, it’s not just about what gets me out of bed each morning but about the late nights, the nights spent on alert, the unwavering vigil.
I thought of my son, who, on his tougher days, truly needs someone there, present and watchful. Living with bipolar disorder is a daily battle, one that’s relentless and unpredictable. For him, every day is a balancing act, and every small thing can feel like an enormous struggle. And as someone who loves him, I know that all I can do is show up and help however I can, even if it means holding space in the quiet hours of the night when sleep would be easier but vigilance is necessary.
So when I think of “what keeps me going,” it’s him, yes. Especially when he needs to keep things steady when he feels anything but.
A Mother’s Vigil
You feel the pulse of want, gather small, bitter grounds, a chipped cup, a crack of sun. Stories burn like a second pour, dark as the night’s last thoughts. You lie awake, hand on his door, thinking how the pull of the waves, the rising and falling, might be easier to ride than these silent rooms. And you wait for dawn, knowing light arrives in fragments, through dark rooms, the quiet creak of hinges, his breath steady, familiar as the lullabies you once hummed.
It catches, spirals, silences sharpened by night. Some nights, it’s all you have: your palm against the wood, feeling the faint pulse there, like the rhythm of a heartbeat you once held inside you. In this, you learn the shape of waiting.
Dawn, like an old friend, bound to the same promise: each morning, you’ll try again, sip the day’s bitter edge, find in each taste a warmth that, if only for a moment, holds the dark at bay. You go on gathering quiet fragments: cracked edges of light, the simmer of grief, what steadies you not in soft morning light but in the sharpness of this, necessary, constant, breathing in time with him, waiting for whatever follows, for the small, hard light you pray will find a way in. Again, you wait.
About This Poem:
Written from the perspective of a mother caring for her son with bipolar disorder, “A Mother’s Vigil” examines the love, fear, and the courage to stay awake for a loved one. The imagery of night watching and dawn’s arrival serves as metaphors for the cycles of mental health challenges and hope.
Related Reading:
- “The Body Does Not Forget Breaking” (maternal trauma)
- “To my daughter, on her first day at school” (maternal protection)
- “The Kitchen War” (domestic struggles)
