Unrelenting Grief II

 

“I scared my wife when I got home from here last week,” Scott says. “I thought I’d cried myself out, but I took one look at her and fell into her arms sobbing. She kept asking me what was wrong and all I could do was cry. She asked if I was sick, if someone else died, if Gram died. And that made me cry even more. I don’t think I’d survive if Gram died right now. I know I told you Gramps was my protector and he was, but my Grandma is an incredible woman, so warm and loving. They had a great relationship. I’m afraid she won’t make it long without him. And you were right, both my grandparents just loved me for who I am. My parents each wanted me to be how they wanted me to be. And the thing that was most crazy-making was that they wanted totally opposite things from me.”  

Scott and I have very different stories, but his intense love for his grandparents and his profound sense of loss touches me greatly. Memories of my grandparents come flooding back, like the time my grandfather and I walked for what seemed to my little girl legs to be miles and miles, looking for a record that had struck a chord with me, “I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch.”  

I bring myself back to my patient. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking a lot about your past.”

“Absolutely!” Pause. “You asked why I was so afraid of my father. That made me wonder if he had sexually abused me, but I don’t think so. I know some people forget that stuff, but I really don’t think so.”

“There are lots of reasons to feel frightened other than sexual abuse.”

He sighs. “Good. I’m glad. There are other reasons.” Pause. “He’s big. And loud. And anything can set him off. Especially in relation to me.” Pause. “I actually think he hates me.” Pause. “You didn’t rush to say you’re sure he doesn’t hate me. That’s what most people say, especially my mother, but even my wife.”

“I have no idea whether your father hates you or not, but I’m certainly interested in why that’s your perception.”

“He has such contempt for me. Even my choosing to be a nurse. He’s constantly calling me a wimp or a pussy or an almost-doctor or wondering if I chose to be a nurse so I’d see him be ashamed in front of his friends.”

“That’s awful, Scott. What do you say when he says those things?”

“Usually nothing. I gave up fighting with my father years ago. When I was little and stood up to him he’d beat the shit out of me. I feel like I remember him saying he wished I was dead rather than my brother. I don’t for sure remember that, but I seem to.”

“Perhaps whether he said it directly or not, that’s the feeling you had and that’s a terribly painful, scary feeling.”

He nods. Tears fall from his eyes. “Gramps would never let him beat me. Gramps rarely screamed except at my father to keep him from beating me. Once I thought they’d get physical, but they didn’t. Maybe my Mom intervened. I’m not sure. But if she did then my Dad would just scream at her and I’d feel scared about that too. Like I should protect her, except I was too scared. Unless Gramps was there. Then everything would be all right.” Pause. “Now nothing will ever be all right again,” he says, burying his head in his hands crying.

“You’ve carried a lot of fear and pain with you for many years, Scott. And it’s like your grandfather’s death has literally opened the floodgates.”

“But I hate my tears! It’s just proves my father is right. I’m a wimp!”

“That’s your father’s voice. That’s the voice of your father that you have taken in and that you hear beat you up when you cry and probably whenever you’re sad and sensitive or perhaps even caring. We’ll need to work on helping you moderate his voice so that you can be kind to the sensitive child you were and the man you continue to be. I suspect you have your grandparents loving voices inside you as well, and that their voices will help you to become kinder towards yourself.”

Scott sighs deeply. “Sounds like a good goal, but one not so easily reached.”

“We’ll work on it.”

Unrelenting Grief

“I just can’t get over this,” Scott says his head buried in his hands, a tall, dark-haired man who looks like he’s in his mid-thirties. “He was 98 years old. Did I expect him to live forever? I loved him so much. And he was always, always there for me. When he and my Grandma decided they couldn’t handle the Kansas farm anymore they moved right next door to us. Actually giving up the farm was pretty hard for me too. I guess I’ve always been a softie. My Dad made fun of me, called me a wuss, a ‘girl,’ too sensitive for my own good. He was always trying to toughen me up. But I loved that farm. It was my safe space. I spent summers there, got to be rid of my Dad and just be loved by my Gram and Gramps. I’m sorry, I’m just rambling all over the place”

“Not at all,” I say. “I can feel how much you’re grieving.” I am near tears myself, remembering the pain of losing first my grandmother and then, three years later, my grandfather. Remembering too, although my grandparents lived not on a farm but in a three room apartment in the Bronx, I knew what it was to have and lose a safe space. “You’re talking about loss. Most people have a terrible time with loss. Doesn’t mean you’re a wuss. Loss of the farm, loss of the days of feeling safe and protected, now the loss of your Grandpa. Is your Grandma still with you?”

“Yes, she’s only 90,” he says with a slight smile. “In my family that’s almost young. But the last month has been really hard on her,” he says sobbing. “I guess it’s been really hard on all of us, taking turns sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, first all those machines and tubes and God knows what else. Then, nothing. I don’t know which was worse, hoping for a miracle, or letting go of hope,” he says breaking down in gut-wrenching sobs. 

Several minutes pass.

“I can’t go on like this. It’s over a month. I have a wife, a precious daughter, a job. I can’t just keep crying.”

“A month isn’t a long time, but I understand you’re saying you’re feeling his death too intensely, like it’s entirely consuming you.”

“Exactly! And I keep asking the same thing my father did, ‘What’s wrong with me?’”   

“I suspect there’s nothing wrong with you, but perhaps we can try to understand the intensity of your feelings. Whose Dad was he, your mother or father’s?”

“My mother’s. I never really knew my father’s parents. They were very old and lived across the country so we almost never saw them. I don’t think I even went to their funerals – my Mom probably wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

“Because?”

“She was over protective like that, wouldn’t have wanted me to get too close to death.” Pause. “I had an older brother who died before I was born. I’m not sure my mother ever got over that loss. And she spent a lot of time making sure I wasn’t going to die like he did.”

“How did he die?”

“I guess he was a real dare-devil kid from the moment he was born. Putting things into electrical sockets when he was like two, riding his bike in traffic, climbing taller and taller trees. That’s how he died, fell out of a tree. My Mom was going to have none of that with me.” 

“Are you saying your Dad pushed you to be more like your brother and your Mom pushed you to be anything but?”

“I never thought about it that way, but that’s exactly right.”

“And your grandparents?”

“I was fine however I was.”

“Wow, that’s quite a contrast. Your grandparents loved and accepted you for just being you. You didn’t have to do or not do anything. That’s an amazing gift. No wonder your grief is so profound.”

Scott weeps. After a while he says, “But I have to stop crying. Why can’t I stop crying?”

“Because you’ve lost one of the two people who were most able to love you.”

Scott shakes his head. “I think there’s more.”

“I’m sure there is. None of our behavior is so simply explained. Do you have any thoughts?”

“I think I’m afraid. I’m afraid of my father. I’ve always been afraid of my father. My Grandpa kept me safe from my father. Now that he’s gone I don’t know if I’ll be safe. I don’t know if I can keep myself safe. And my Grandma’s too depleted. Anyway she wasn’t the one who kept me safe from my father. It was Gramps, Gramps,” Scott says sobbing. “I’m such a baby. I’m a 36 year old man, how can I be so afraid of my father?”

“I guess that is the question, Scott. What went on between you and your father when you were little that made you so afraid of him? We already know that he was very critical of what he saw as your ‘weakness.’ But perhaps there was more. Our time is up for today, but perhaps we can continue with this next time.” 

Please Help Me

 “My name is Lisa Henry. I’m forty. And I’m desperate. If you can’t help me I don’t know what I’ll do,” says this clearly anxious woman whose appearance reminds me of the stereotypical 50s housewife, page boy hair style, pink dress gathered at the waist, flaring outward. “Can you help me?”

“I think you’ll first need to tell me what you need help with.”

“My son.”

Silence.

“He… he just told me that he’s … that he’s gay,” she says taking a deep breath. “There, I said it!” 

“I gather that’s a problem for you?”

She looks startled. “Of course it’s a problem. How could it not be!”

“Is it a problem for your son?”

“He says it isn’t, but that’s impossible. He was a normal boy. He played baseball. He was always popular.” Pause. “And he grew up in our family.”

“And what was it like growing up in your family?”

“We’re a Christian family. My husband is always praying and reading the Bible. And of course we pray as a family before every meal. We eat together. There are seven of us. My son – the one I’m talking about – he’s my eldest. My husband will never, ever accept this. I’m afraid he’d disown my son, but that’s not going to be necessary because you’re going to help me, right?”

“Mrs. Henry, exactly what do you want me to help you with?”

“Telling me how to convince my son he’s not gay.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can do that. I can’t convince anyone that he isn’t gay and I can’t help anyone to change in any way who isn’t in my office and who doesn’t want to change.”

“That’s the first thing we need to do. We need to convince him he does want to change, that he isn’t gay and if he needs to see you that’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Henry. I can’t do that. I can help you try to come to terms with your son being gay…”

“No way,” she interrupts. “You have no idea what you’re saying! I could never accept such a thing. And even if I could … could … I don’t know, … pretend it’s not happening, my husband would never, ever be able to even look at my son again.”

I realize I have been so taken aback by this woman’s request, that I have been debating with her, rather than dealing with her underlying feelings. “That’s really sad, Mrs. Henry. You must be feeling very sad and scared that there’s going to be this tremendous breach in your family and that you might even lose your son.”

“No, no, no. That’s not going to happen. It can’t happen again. It can’t,” she says, starting to cry.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean it can’t happen again?”

“That’s what happened to me.”

I look at her, totally bewildered.

“I lost my family,” she says in a whisper. “My family were orthodox Jews. When I married outside the religion my family sat shiva for me. I haven’t seen any of them since.”

“I’m so sorry. That must be terribly painful.”

She nods, as tears fall down her face. “But I thought I put it behind me. I made my own family. And I was always going to have that family, the family I have now. You see, that’s why you have to help me, you have to help me not lose another family.”

“I understand why you feel so desperate, but there are some things I can help you with and some things I can’t help you with. I can help you to grieve the family you lost, your family of origin. I can perhaps help you to accept your son’s gayness. And I might even be able to help you find a way to talk with your husband about your son…”

She shakes her head vigorously.

“I understand that seems impossible to you now and it may be impossible, but I can help you to maintain a relationship with your son regardless of how your husband feels…”

“No, that’s not possible either. He would never allow it.”

“Do you love your husband, Mrs. Henry?”

“Yes, of course, what kind of question is that?”

“Does he love you?”

She hesitates for a moment but says, “Yes, yes of course.”

“So your relationship is important to both of you. Perhaps that means you could talk, negotiate…”

“No. My husband makes all the decisions.”

“And did your father make all the decisions?”

“Yes, yes he did. How did you know that?” 

“Different religion, but similar way of being in the world.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Mrs. Henry, our time is almost up for today and I don’t know if you want to continue working with me or not. I can’t help your son be not gay. I can help you deal with the very painful situation you’re in now, which also brings up a very painful loss in the past. But you’ll have to decide if that’s the kind of work you want to do before you decide whether or not to work with me.”

“I don’t know.” Pause. “Can I think about it?” 

“Of course. Just call and let me know what you decide. And know that regardless I wish you the best.”  

Emptiness

 

“I can’t understand it,” Valerie says sobbing. “Why would he want to leave me? We said it was forever. He’s breaking his promise! It’s not fair!! This should have been the best time of our lives. Approaching retirement, soon able to travel wherever we wanted. And now I’m just going to be alone.”

“Valerie, is Dave really choosing to leave you?” I ask gently.

“Of course he is. The doctor said there were several other chemo options he could try.”

I am more than familiar with the pain of losing a life partner, so I know to tread carefully in this most difficult of life experiences. “Can you understand Dave’s decision to stop further treatment?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Do you have a living will, Valerie?”

“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t want to be kept alive if I was in a vegetative state, or if my mind was totally gone. But that’s not where Dave’s at.”

“Where is Dave at? What’s his quality of life? How does he spend his days?”

“He’s in bed a lot. He’s always tired. He sleeps. I know it’s partly from the lung cancer and partly the pain medication. But we still have conversations. We still sleep in the same bed. Sometimes we watch TV together. He coughs all the time, sometimes says he can’t catch his breath. Tells me he has a lot of empathy for Covid patients but he also says…” Valerie breaks off, puts her head in her hands and sobs.

When she composes herself she continues, “He says at least they have vaccines for Covid now and new medications and that at least Covid patients have the chance to get better and live normal lives. He no longer has hope. But I have hope. He could try some of these other drugs, these other regimens.”

“It sounds as though Dave is very tired, Valerie.”

She sobs again. “You think I should let him go?”

“Sounds like he’s saying he’s had enough.”

She sobs. “I’m so scared. I’m going to miss him so much. I’m not saying our marriage
was perfect, no marriage is perfect I know that. But we’ve been together for over 30 years. I don’t know what it’s like to live alone. I’ve never lived alone. I lived with my parents then roommates and then Dave. I just see myself locked in that house rotting away.”

“Rotting away? That’s a very graphic image. What makes you think you’ll rot away?”

“I don’t know. I guess like old food in the refrigerator that is left and forgotten about and just rots away. Like no one would know whether I’m alive or dead.”

“I don’t in any way doubt that you’re describing your feelings, but it’s surprising to me that you picture yourself so desolately. Before your husband’s illness you seemed to have a very active social life, to be involved with lots of people, in lots of different ways.”

“All meaningless. And besides, it was my husband who was the social one. Left on my own I just rot.” Pause “There’s that word again, rot.”

“Do you feel as though you’re rotten, Valerie? Rotten as in bad?”

“No, I don’t think I’m bad.” Pause. “I just think I’m not much of anything. Kind of a blob. My husband brought life into our home. Left to my own devices I’m afraid I’ll be swallowed by the emptiness.”

“I know depression can put a pall over everything, but this sounds like something more, like you’re literally afraid of disappearing into the void.”

“That’s it exactly. No Dave, no me, just an empty blob.”

Feeling more and more of Valerie’s despair, I ask, “And you felt that way as a child as well and as a young adult, like in college?”

“Well, there were my parents to tell me what I was supposed to do and then, as I said, I had roommates and sort of followed along with the crowd.”

“It sounds, Valerie, as though you’ve spent your life following along with whomever you’ve been with. And now, with Dave’s decision to stop treatment, you’re confronted with the terrifying feeling of not knowing who you are apart from him, and perhaps of never knowing who you were.”

“I’m terrified. I think you’re absolutely right and that makes me need Dave even more. Do you think I can persuade him to continue treatment until you and I can work this out? Until you can fix me?”

“Right this minute you may feel that you need Dave more, but nothing has actually changed. We definitely do need to work on your feeling more your own sense of self, but whether Dave will stay around until we accomplish that I can’t say.”

“I’m not sure I can survive. I want to survive but I’m not sure I can.”

“You just said something very important. You said you want to survive. That’s you, Valerie, knowing what you want.”

Self = Bad

 “So I’ve been thinking about where we ended last time,” Paula says, starting right in from our previous session. “You said we’d need to figure out why I can’t forgive myself for not being more attentive to my mother when she was dying. I’ve thought about it and I don’t see why I SHOULD forgive myself. I know I was a teen-ager, but I was old enough to know better. I did know better. I was being cruel and nasty and just plain BAD.”

“So what made you bad?”

“I suppose I was just born that way – selfish, self-centered, only caring about myself. And that’s how I was being when my mother was dying, paying attention to me not her.”

Convinced of the futility of arguing with Paula’s view of herself, I pursue an alternative approach. “How does it feel for you to see yourself as selfish and self-centered?”

“It feels …” Pause. “It feels accurate and true and I guess kind of shitty….” Pause. “And familiar.”

“Familiar?”

“Yeah, like I’ve always seen myself like that.” Pause. “And I guess my parents, especially my mother, always told me I was selfish, like ‘why can’t Monica go with you to the movies?’ My mother was always trying to get me to take my sister along with me and my friends.” Pause. “I hated Monica. I hated her from the moment she was born. Everyone fussing over the baby. I didn’t see anything so special about her. She just lay there and stared. And then when she turned out to be autistic, well that just made everything worse. All the attention went to poor Monica, understanding Monica, making allowances for Monica. But you see, you see how selfish I am, wanting all the attention, wanting Monica and all her problems to just disappear.”

Here again I feel the pull to reassure Paula, to tell her she was just a child who of course had angry, rejecting feelings towards her younger, challenging sister. Yet I know that Paula will only dispute what I say. “Paula, if I were to try and reassure you, to tell you all children have negative feelings towards their siblings, you’d tell me that your feelings were worse, stronger, more heartless, right?”

“Yes. Because it’s true. And you’re only trying to make me feel better. But I don’t deserve to feel better.”

“Why don’t you deserve to feel better?”

“Because I’m bad, very bad.”

“It sounds as though being bad is almost like a core sense of who you are. Being Paula equals being bad.”

“Yes. I’m bad because I hated my sister and didn’t want to be there for my mother.”

“I wonder if you had fantasies about killing your sister.”

She nods. “See, I told you I was bad, worse than bad, evil.”

“It’s not unusual for children – or adults for that matter – to have fantasies of killing a sibling, or a parent, or boss or whomever. But I suspect my saying that isn’t going to make you feel any less bad.”

“I’m bad. I’ve always been bad. My grandma used to tell me that I was like that girl in an old movie, “The Bad Seed,” I think she called it.”

“Why did your grandma think you were bad?”

“She never liked me. She thought I was mean to both my mother and sister. And she doted on Monica. The sun rose and set on Monica.” Pause. “I think grandma might have been on the spectrum too, but of course no one talked about that.”

“Paula, do you have a sense of who you’d be if you weren’t ‘bad?’”

“But I am bad.”

“I understand that’s your view of yourself. But I’m asking if you can imagine you as someone who isn’t bad.”

“No, that’s impossible.”

“So that’s one of the big problems we have here. Being ‘bad’ is such a core sense of yourself that to imagine anything else is destabilizing. It’s like you said, being ‘bad’ feels familiar.”

“It’s familiar because it’s accurate.”

“Do you want me to dispute that with you right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it feels as though you’re almost asking me to say ‘no, that’s not so.’ But If I disagree with you, does that give you the hope that you might in fact not be bad or does it just help you shore up your argument when you counter me?”

“I’ve never thought of that.” Pause. “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m as bad as I think I am.” Pause. “So I guess maybe I am hoping that I could eventually see myself as you see me. It makes me sad when I say that.”

“I understand that. If you see yourself through my eyes, it means giving up seeing yourself through the eyes of your parents and your grandma, which means leaving them behind and bringing up feelings of loss and sadness.”

An Apology

An Apology

“I’ve been depressed since our session this past Monday,” Paula begins. “I’m not exactly sure why.” Pause. “I guess it’s because we were talking about my mother’s death – for a change – and that always makes me depressed. It’s been almost 20 years for God’s sake, I don’t see why I can’t let it go.”

“I know you get depressed when we talk about your mother’s death, Paula, but I thought about our last session too. I feel as though I was pushing you too hard and I want to apologize for that.”

“That’s what you get to do. If you didn’t push me, I’d be even more stuck than I am already.”

“I don’t know. You were talking about your guilt about your mother’s death and although it’s true that from my perspective you have nothing to feel guilty about, what matters is your perspective. I don’t think I gave you enough of a chance to talk about your feelings, including your guilt feelings.”

“My mother died of cancer. I get that I was a teen-ager, more preoccupied with my own life. But I could have gone to the hospital more. I could have spent more time with her. I could have just sat holding her hand.” Pause. “Besides, why would I get depressed if you were pushing me to not feel guilty? You’d think I’d appreciate it.”

“Well, what is one of the big problems you had with your mother even before she got sick?”

“She was always in my face, always on top of me, telling me what to do, telling me what I should think, what I should feel … Oh! I get it! You think you were being like my mother, intrusive like my mother”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I guess that’s a good point.” Pause. “But I still don’t know why that would get me depressed.”

“Well, what did you feel when I was pushing you to not feel guilty”

“I don’t know if I felt it then or whether I’m feeling it now that we’re talking about it, but right now I guess I do feel, hey, isn’t this where I get to talk about my feelings? How come you’re not letting me feel what I feel?  I thought that’s what I get to do here!” Paula pauses. On my video screen I watch as she drops her head, her straight brown hair falling forward over her face. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, “I didn’t mean to get annoyed.”

“Paula, what just happened? You seemed to go from a person expressing her feelings and her right to be heard, to what seemed to be a scared, apologetic little girl?”

“I felt guilty for being ang… annoyed at you.”

“So you can’t even say you’re angry at me.”

“I’m afraid to be angry at you.”

“Because?”

“I don’t know,” she says in a barely audible voice.

Silence.

“Your anger feels dangerous?” I ask.

She nods. “I was angry at my Mom and look what happened to her. It’s much better to keep it tucked safely away.”

“Except it’s never ‘safely away.’ It’s turned inward on yourself so that you end up feeling depressed.”

“So you’re saying I was depressed after last session because I was angry at you and turned it on myself, not because my mother died? That makes me sound even more selfish and self-centered!”

I feel the urge to argue against Paula’s interpretation of her depressed feelings and wonder if her way of being self-deprecating, tends to elicit a reassuring, albeit intrusive, response from me. Do I feel a similar pull with other patients? Does Paula unconsciously set up this dynamic?” I’ll have to think about all that, but right now I need to respond to Paula.

“I think you can be depressed for more than one reason, but it sounds as though you’re saying you should feel depressed about your mother’s death.”

“Yes, of course I should feel depressed about my mother’s death. She’s dead!”

“You can certainly feel sad about your mother’s death, but I don’t know that carrying depression around as a heavy weight that burdens all aspects of your life is at all helpful.”

Paula sighs. “I guess after almost 20 years I should be able to cut myself some slack.”

I nod, smiling.

“But why is that so difficult for me?”

“I guess because you still feel the need to punish yourself.”

“I think you’re right.” Pause. “But what can I do about that?”

“I guess we’ll need to talk more about why you can’t forgive yourself for what you see as your adolescent ‘sins.’”

Good-bye Again

 Although it is not my norm, today I begin Laurie’s session. “I need to tell you, Laurie, that starting next week I’m going back to working from home.”

“What?!” she shrieks. “You’ve got to be shitting me! We just came back to your office! You know how much I need to see you. You can’t do this to me. You can’t, you can’t,” she says sobbing, her face buried in her hands.

“I knew this would be very difficult for you, Laurie, but you know how Covid cases are tearing through Florida. I can’t risk your health, mine or anyone else’s.”

“I hate you! I hate you!! You’re like a big tease. ‘Here I am and now I’m gone!’ I can never rely on you. I can’t rely on you any more than I could rely on anyone else.”

Although I know it’s very unlikely to help Laurie to feel better, I feel compelled to say, “Remember when you felt just seeing me once would be reassuring to you, would convince you that I was indeed alive and not a figure of your imaginings.”

Laurie looks at me scornfully. “You’re joking, right? What does it matter what I was feeling then? This is now and I feel like crap and it’s your fault.” Pause. “What if we wore masks?”

“You know the answer to that, Laurie. I wouldn’t be able to hear you and it’s impossible to do therapy if I can’t hear you. We can do therapy without seeing each other, but it’s impossible to do therapy without hearing each other.”

“So there’s no compromise?”

“I don’t know if it’s a compromise, but you now know that we will see each other at some point, we will be back in the office as soon as it’s safe.”

“As soon as YOU say it’s safe!”

“Yes, that’s true. It is my call. And that is part of what I do, Laurie, keep us both as safe as possible.”

“You’re talking about my mother, right?”

“Yes. She didn’t keep you as the six-year-old child safe when she killed herself and she certainly wasn’t keeping herself safe.”

“But I don’t see how that helps me now!”

“Well, I may be mistaken, but it seems to be that you are feeling a little calmer right this minute.”

“I’m feeling depressed. I’m feeling I have to deal with yet another loss, the loss of you. Makes me very sad.”

“Do you feel depressed or sad?”

“You always ask me that. I can never tell the difference.”

“Depression is more a feeling of numbness, of nothingness. And it’s often a result of anger turned inward, like turning your anger at me in on yourself. Sadness is more acute, more intense and is often about mourning.”

“I’m feeling both. I don’t want to be angry at you. It scares me. What if I’m angry at you and then you get Covid? I’d feel horrible, guilty. I wouldn’t want that to be the last thing you remembered of me. But I also feel this huge loss. I know, you’ll say I’m still mourning my mother, and maybe I am. But it’s also about you. I need you so much and it is so good to see you in person and it just feels like this huge emptiness, again.”

“I do understand, Laurie. It’s a loss for me too. It’s been wonderful seeing you in person, actually having you as a real, live person in my office. But it’s not forever, unlike with your mother.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing her up.”

“Because…?”

“Well, what first jumped in my head, is that it feels like you’re trying to pass the buck, trying to get me to talk about her rather than you.”

“That’s a really good point, Laurie. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I also was trying to move away from the sadness between us.”

“Really! Wow, I’m surprised. I’m surprised that you’d feel that and, truthfully, surprised that you’d admit it.”

I smile. “Therapy is a place I get to be truthful too, it’s a place I get to reflect on myself just as you do.”

Tears fall down Laurie’s cheeks. “You see, that’s why I love you so much, that’s why I miss you, you’re such an amazing special person. There’s no one in the whole world like you.”

“Remember how much you hated me at the beginning of the session? I’m neither a horrible, evil person nor a saintly one. I’m both. And it’s important that you try and hold onto both parts of me.”

“But now I have to say good-bye again and that makes me really, really sad.”

“Yes, it is sad, but we’ll talk to each other next week and we’ll both be very much real and alive.”