“Mom, Please Help Me!” – Alone with Three Kids in the American Reality

“Mom, please help me. I’m drowning.”

The words trembled out of my mouth as I clutched my phone, hands sticky with nerves. I could hear my youngest, Lily, wailing in the background, her sobs echoing through our cramped two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Columbus. Tyler and Emma were arguing over the last frozen waffle. My mother’s sigh crackled through the speaker, heavy and sharp. “Jessica, you have to figure this out. I have my own life. I raised you. It’s your turn now.”

The call ended before I could form a reply. I stood there, phone pressed to my ear, feeling the weight of her dismissal. Another wall, another No.

I lost Mark seven months ago. He was coming home late from the night shift at the warehouse, the roads icy and black. The cop said it was over fast, that he probably didn’t even see the truck coming. The world split open that night, and I’ve been stumbling along the edge ever since. Sometimes I still hear his voice in the quiet, see his smile in Tyler’s stubborn set of the jaw or Emma’s cautious kindness.

But the world doesn’t slow down for grief. Not in America, not when you’re a single mom with three kids and bills piling up like snowdrifts after a blizzard. The rent is late, the car’s check engine light has been on for weeks, and if I call off from work at Target one more time, I might not have a job to lose.

“Mommy, Emma won’t let me have the waffle!” Tyler screeched, snapping me back to reality. I took a shaky breath. “We’ll split it, okay? Please, just… help each other out.”

Some mornings I barely recognize myself. I used to be organized, optimistic. Now, I’m always tired, always snapping. The coffee tastes burnt, my patience thinner than the cheap curtains on our window. The guilt gnaws at me — for my temper, for not doing enough, for not being enough. The loneliness is the worst. Even surrounded by my kids, the emptiness is a living thing, curling around my heart.

Emma started acting out at school. She’s only nine, but I catch her glancing at me with a worry too old for her freckled face. Her teacher called last week.

“Ms. Harper, Emma seems distracted. Is everything okay at home?”

How do you answer that? How do you explain lost fathers and lost tempers in a way that makes sense to a woman who doesn’t have to count every penny?

I called my mom again last Tuesday. I rehearsed what I’d say. “I’m not asking for much. Can you just watch them for a couple hours on Saturday? I need to pick up an extra shift — we need the money.”

She was silent for a long time. “Jessica, you know I have my bridge club. And I’m not good with little kids anymore.”

I hung up before the tears could give her the satisfaction.

The neighbors try to help. Mrs. Donnelly from 4C sometimes brings over leftover casserole, pretending she made too much. Tyler plays with her grandson in the hallway. Their kindness is a small light, but it’s not enough to keep the darkness at bay.

At work, I fake smiles for customers buying things I can’t afford. I envy their easy laughter, their weekends at the lake or the zoo. My manager, Susan, is strict but not unkind. “Jessica, you’re a hard worker. But you’ve got to get your life together.”

If only it were that simple.

Some nights, after the kids are asleep, I sit at the kitchen table with overdue bills spread out like a losing hand of cards. I run the numbers, try to make them work. Maybe if I skip groceries this week. Maybe if I don’t fill the prescription. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Emma crept out of bed last night, found me with my head in my hands. “Mommy, are you okay?”

I wanted to lie, to protect her. But the truth pressed in. “I’m just tired, honey. Go back to bed.”

She hugged me tight, her little arms strong. “I miss Daddy, too.”

Grief is a strange companion. It shows up in the grocery store, in the silence after a tantrum, in the empty side of the bed. I want to scream at the world, at my mother, at God. I want someone to see me, really see me, and not just as another struggling mom.

Last week, the school sent home a flyer about a support group for single parents. I shoved it into the junk drawer, but tonight, I’m thinking about going. Maybe I’ll find someone who knows what it’s like to be both the anchor and the sail, to be the only adult in a sea of need.

I love my kids. They’re the reason I keep going, even when it feels impossible. But sometimes I wish someone would show up for me, just once, without me having to ask.

Is it weakness to want help? Or is it just being human?

If you were in my shoes, what would you do? How do you keep going when every door feels closed?