Bad Stuff
Emily is fine. Just want to make sure that’s clear. This has nothing to do with her.
I got some colossally crappy news early last week about someone I’ve known a long time. I haven’t wanted to write about it. Writing about it makes it real. And how selfish am I? It didn’t really happen to me. Except that I’ll never, ever see her again.
Debbie, my therapist of 15-½ years, quite suddenly became disabled and unable to work. She may die. And I may never know if she does.
They won’t give me many details. That’s part of what sucks about this relationship: she knows everything about me, things I’ve never told another living soul, and I don’t even know her husband’s name or her favorite color. Which is appropriate, really. One of the things she and I established early on was that it would be easier for me to talk to her if I knew as little as possible. She gave enough away, just through body language and the sorts of questions she asked. As the years went by things relaxed just a bit - I got to see a picture of her kids when she came back from her last maternity leave.
Four kids. The youngest would be (if I’m counting properly) about 5-½ now. And I’m whining about what I’ve lost.
Debbie would remind me that grief is not a contest. That the fact that her husband and her children have an enormous burden to bear, and that what I’m going through is so much less, does not change the fact that I’ve got to deal with the loss and the grief. I can’t talk myself out of it. I can’t slither sideways away from the pain by thinking about how much worse her family must be feeling.
I can’t do anything for them. I can’t visit her. I can’t send flowers, or a letter. I can’t mow their lawn or make sure they have meals delivered. I can’t do any of the things that you’d do for someone who was an ordinary friend, or even just a neighbor. Because of our relationship, I am shut out. Appropriate? Yes. I wouldn’t dream of crossing that line; she’s got enough to cope with right now. But it sucks in an enormous way. I’m powerless. Of course, lawn mowing and flowers wouldn’t get her well - but I’d at least be doing my part to make her feel cared for.
She is my friend, I’ve realized, paid or not. She listens to my garbage, she lets me cry on her shoulder, she kicks me gently in the backside when it’s warranted. She’s kind to me without being a pushover. What else do friends do?
But of course, I’m not her friend. That’s the deal. When I walk into her office to bare my soul, I start off by handing her a check. (It was my choice, many many years ago, to start dealing with the money thing first. It felt way too awkward to hit the end of the time, blow my nose and mop off my face, and cough up cash. I pay the fee when I’m still composed, still have my rest-of-the-world face on.) She tells me very little - only what is necessary.
She did point out, once, that I never asked about her personal life. I was kind of surprised by that; do people do that with their therapists? She said that people do, but she doesn’t always answer. She did say that what people wanted to know was pretty revealing in itself. I did ask her something, I think, but I don’t remember what. When she brought in the picture of her kids, I think it was after I expressed some wistfulness about having never seen them.
Gorgeous children. Just beautiful. Movie-star looks. Debbie is beautiful (she reminds me of Elisabeth Shue, only with black hair), but her husband must be as well. Some of them resembled her more than others.
It’s thinking of her kids that makes me cry. I’ve been told point blank that she’ll never return to her practice; so all I can wish for is that she becomes well enough to be a mother to those kids, and a wife for her husband.
I don’t even know enough to know if that wish is a stretch.
“Brain illness” was the term they used. It came on without warning. I take that to mean not cancer, but possibly an aneurism or a stroke. Steve wondered about encephalitis. I will never know.
It’s been a good seven years (at least) since I’ve needed her. I’ve stayed because she’s still helped sometimes. And, frankly, because it’s such a pleasure to have another mom to talk to. I got snippets, sometimes, of stories about her kids; but mostly it was just nice to be able to talk about my most primal, disconcerting feelings for Emily and have someone just get it.
The interesting thing is that for some time now I’ve had a Debbie in my head. I can imagine telling her something, and make a pretty decent prediction of how she’d respond. That helps, a little. She’ll never leave me, not really. Except that she has.
Steve hauled out the old adage about being taught to fish. Debbie has taught me to fish. I cope quite nicely in the real world, as it happens, and I have for many years now. But what she did before teaching me to fish was pick up the little bits that constituted my psyche, and knit them back together. I’m mixing metaphors - Steve says she pulled the hooks out of my mouth. Which says it really well, I think: she stopped me from yanking on the very strings that were hurting me.
Without her, I’d have none of this. I wouldn’t have recognized Steve for what he was when we started dating. I’d never have been able to cope with motherhood. And now I’m thriving. I have a loving, loyal husband who sticks with me even when I act like an idiot; I have a smart, beautiful, willful daughter. She gave me this life. How do you repay that?
When her colleague called me on the phone to tell me, I asked if she’d pass on my good wishes. I also asked if she’d tell Debbie that I was okay, and that it was because of her. It’s the only gift I knew how to give her: that she’d made a difference.
I wish I was religious; maybe a prayer would make me feel better. As it is, all I can do is straighten up and do all of those things I’d talked to her about doing. She’s given me this life. I owe it to her to live it well.
But this still sucks.
Friday, June 16, 2006
