Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.
Gloria Steinem

He sat on the edge of the bed holding his head, looking as he did at the lump lying underneath his flimsy blanket. Oh boy, he thought to himself as he felt a literal pang of sadness in his chest. He had a guest, and he could feel her sadness even in her awkward sleep and heavy breathing. It was going to be a long day thinking about this. How to proceed? » Read the rest of this entry «

“A what?” he asked, still groggy from the night before.

“An emapth,” she explained, drawing closer to his face. “Someone who has an extremely heightened sense of empathy. My whole life I’ve felt like this but I’m not sure I’ve ever met another one. Until now that is.”

He took a long pause and took this woman in. Who the hell was she? A teacher, yes, he knew that, but clearly also someone who drank too much, would spend the night with a stranger, however platonically, and had absolutely no fear of opening up, at least from what he could see.
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“Hello, Doctor,” John said irreverently.

“Come in asshole,” was the response.

Looking around john noticed the familiar stacks of yellowing papers and old books from the 60’s and 70’s. The guy was a classicist, he had to admit, and looking around he hoped to God he wasn’t looking at the ghost of Christmas future. On the other hand he knew the guy was brilliant, and he did kind of admire the mad scientist quality that seemed to permeate every area of his life.

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After an hour in the bar the frizzy haired bartender had told him half of her life story, and was on the verge of tears. Jesus I really do have the magic touch, John thought to himself. People had always told him their stories very easily, which was in a way rather surprising as he had always had a terribly big mouth, which was not exactly a blue ribbon quality in a therapist. He was trying not to think about what Dr. Paul had said about his wanting to be a “celebrity” therapist, and it stung a bit thinking how much he knew he had been right. He didn’t even really need to see patients anymore between his books, teaching, and other sources of income, and he had thought for a long while of cutting down to 4 or 5 patients a week. Now the pull to go back to doing therapy had gotten stronger. Why now? He kept repeating it over and over again. It was one of the first and most fundamental questions in therapy, and John knew that he had to answer this question for himself before he could begin to figure out some of what he was going through. » Read the rest of this entry «

She looked him over and thought for a second before responding. He had been good to her, that was true, she still didn’t know what he wanted, and until she did, she was a little bit wary of saying everything that was on her mind.

“I don’t know why I told you. It just ended up making everything worse,” she responded.

He felt the urge to rush in and defend himself, but then immediately thought better of that idea. He knew she had more to say, and that by allowing for a little silence she would eventually verbalize the conflict that was going on inside of her.

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Somehow he knew this before it even left Kim’s mouth. It was her. He had found the woman. That wasn’t exactly true, he knew where she worked, and he had gotten this information from a very fragile patient who was also a child, which was not exactly like hooking up with someone on Craigslist. Still, he thought this was a significant bit of information, and knew from his very short time with Stephanie that she might be an important person in Kim’s life as she began the very slow work of healing. » Read the rest of this entry «

The next day he called St. Luke’s elementary and asked for Mrs. Corcoran. She wasn’t in, and the receptionist asked if he wanted to leave a message. He did indeed, but what to say? Therapist first, therapist first, he reminded himself, and he told the receptionist he wanted to speak to her about a new student of hers who mentioned that the two of them were close, which was in fact the truth. Any personal desires he had were secondary to this, although even as he said this to himself he knew it was also partially a lie. He wanted to get to know her better and hoped this phone call was also a precursor to that.

So he left his message, feeling vaguely unsatisfied and disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to talk to her. In between sessions that day, he kept thinking about the movie the Wizard of Oz. His whole life he had gotten repetitive messages that popped into his head for weeks and even years at a time, and he was very curious as to why this movie would present itself to him right now.

He spent most of the afternoon thinking about the movie. It was actually one of his favorite metaphors to use in therapy, as it said so much about people’s interpersonal journeys. Often we have the answers to our problems, that was the easy part. The tough part was getting to the point where we took action in pursuit of these answers. Like Dorothy in the movie, we often have to stumble and stagger and fall down before we understand that there really is no magical destination, but rather a place inside ourselves of acceptance and understanding.

He thought even more about the characters in the story and what they were missing. More importantly he thought about what he was missing. He thought about what usually made him the most defensive, and realized this usually occurred when people pestered him about why he wasn’t married. Just the fact that the word “pestered” occurred to him in this capacity was revealing, and he was once again mindful of his own conflictual feelings about commitment.

Was he missing a heart? In some sense the tin man was the character that rang the truest for him. He gave every ounce of himself as a therapist, but somehow had an undeveloped sense of his own ability to give and receive love when the therapeutic day came to an end. Why was this? It was a question he had explored endlessly, and he knew the basic answers about being a child of divorce, attachment issues, etc.

Later that day another phrase came into his head, an old Buddhist proverb; ‘When the student is ready the teacher appears.” He thought about it all the time with regard to his relationship with Dr. Paul, who was an astute enough therapist to know that giving people answers was essentially a useless exercise. John himself felt the same way about therapy, but had a much more supportive and encouraging style, which he knew was at least in part because of his fear of confrontation. He always rationalized that this was just what he was comfortable with, but lately something had been nagging at him. What if being confrontational was in fact the empathic thing to do?

It wasn’t a new question in the field of psychology. In a ranking of the most influential therapist of the twentieth century, two names that were at the very top of the list were Albert Ellis and Carl Rogers, who had drastically different approaches to human change. John had gravitated towards Rogers, whose emphasis on empathy, active listening, encouragement, and the relationship between the client and the therapist influenced thousands of future therapists, and set the gold standard for how a therapist should conduct himself in a session.

Ellis’s style on the other hand was in your face, attacking people’s self-sabotaging ways of thinking and not allowing people for a second to make a victim of themselves. He was highly effective with this approach, and also influenced thousands of therapists and was in a large part responsible for giving birth to the cognitive-behavioral paradigm that was currently the most popular approach to therapy all around the United States.

John had used Roger’s approach to therapy for his entire career, and had established himself as a very successful therapist who had an excellent rate of client retention. This was a bit of a paradox however, as the goal of therapy was essentially to make it so your clients no longer need to come to therapy, although there was considerable debate as to the amount of time that such a process should take.

What John was actually debating however, was confrontation as it related to the scrutiny of his own behavior. He thought back to one of his favorite books on human behavior, M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. In it the author makes the point that discipline in personal behavior, although exceedingly difficult, was at the core of a happy human experience. The entire book was full of amazing insights into human behavior, and john had read the book several times. The rub of the story was that the author turned out to be a hard-drinking womanizer who betrayed his wife who he had written such glowing things about. Many people felt these actions nullified the points he made in his book, as he couldn’t live up to the standard he outlined for others in his widely influential book. John disagreed.

It was the end of a long week and John found himself very tired of thinking about all of these issues in his own life.  It all seemed rather self-absorbed, and he needed a little break from his own thoughts for a while. Way against his better judgment, he headed across the street to the dingy bar and ordered a drink. It was going to be a long night.

Over the years he had learned a lot about his own drinking. One of the great lessons he had learned from talking to a lot of people that drank heavily, was that getting drunk was often an antidote to anxiety, which at its core was a future-oriented fear. That was the tack that he took with people who came to him with a drinking problem. What was the fear? What were they avoiding? At this moment John was wondering what he was avoiding, as he scanned his own body looking for signs of anxiety. His heart was beating way too fast. He was fidgeting around in his chair, and clearly knew that something in his system was on high alert. The proper thing to do would be to try and figure this out.

But that’s not what John did.

John had a switch when he was drinking, and most of the time he knew right where it was. Five drinks. If he got to five the feel good chemicals took over and John began to howl at the moon. Tonight the switch was thrown, and at 2 in the morning he was downtown in a very busy bar. The John that was out at two in the morning was only a remnant of the therapist he was the majority of his life, and tonight this was especially true. His last stop of the night was at a dingy little jazz place in the city where he thought he could wind down with some cool music and put this day into the books. He was wrong.

Waking up the next day he reached over with a sense of pending doom. He saw a dark mane of hair peaking out from under his blanket and felt a great rush of disappointment rise up inside of him. He had been raised Catholic, and sex always came with a hint of shame attached to it. There was more to this feeling though he was sure. He felt something very sharp hit his side, and winced at the realization of the chain of events he was sure he had just put in motion.

He looked up and noticed it was already 11 O’clock. He sat up and tried to figure out his next move. He looked at the snoring unclothed woman laying there and wondered what she needed. He wasn’t a believer that people could have casual, meaningless sex, as he had seen way too much evidence to the contrary. Maybe she was just lonely and needed to feel close to someone. He certainly felt like that sometimes, and reasoned that as long as they were both consenting adults that perhaps this wasn’t that big of a thing to feel so guilty about it. These thoughts were interrupted however by a loud banging on the door. Thinking it was his nosy landlady he slowly ambled over to the door to see what the commotion was all about. He wasn’t remotely prepared for what was at the door. It was Stephanie, holding a carton with coffee and bagels and looking even better then he remembered. Damn.

“Can I come in?”

“Uh, wow, it’s kind of amazing to see you,” was John’s reply.

“Uh yea, you too buddy, that’s why I asked to come in, I’ve been thinking about you.”

Before John could respond to this, he heard a noise in the background, and he felt a familiar feeling of dread rise up inside of him. Soon his worst fears were confirmed, when his houseguest appeared behind him scrambling around looking for her clothes.

“Hey guys,” she said shyly, “sorry to interrupt, but I have to get to work today.”

Stephanie took a long look at John and slowly turned to walk away.

“Wait, I, I wanted to talk to you, can I call you?” he asked pleadingly.

“You don’t seem to be ready for me today John,” she said sharply.

“And by the way doctor, there’s a person in there with you who might also need a little bit of your time.”

John thought about what Stephanie had said before he decided what to do about his houseguest. She had a point, it was incredibly selfish of him to simply dismiss this woman simply because he was interested in someone else. It was more then selfish, it was the antithesis of everything he had tried to put into practice about human interactions. What was her perspective about this? Was she embarrassed? Hurt? Confused? Did she even want to talk about his? He realized this last thought likely came from a selfish desire to avoid a difficult situation. He was a therapist. He was trained to talk about difficult things, and didn’t let himself off the hook so easily.

Despite being in a big hurry to get back to work, it turned out she did in fact want to talk. Her name was Kristin and she had recently lost her father. She had been drinking a lot, staying out late, and had been with a lot more men then usual lately in an attempt to feel closer to people and to forget for a while the pain that came from losing her father, who she had a great deal of unresolved issues with.

The whole thing made sense from a psychological standpoint. He was an older man, emotionally expressive, and likely said all of the right things at 2 in the morning to get this woman to agree to come home with him. There was a psychological precedent here that went all the way back to Freud called the “repetition compulsion” which explains how a person will repeat a problem from childhood over and over again trying to achieve a different result.

All of these thoughts were John’s attempt to intellectualize however. In this case John had at least on some level used his knowledge of psychology for his own personal gain, and now he wanted to do his best to deal with what he had done. After talking for nearly an hour, John gave her a recommendation for a female therapist he knew who he thought would be a good fit. He also informed her she could call him if she wanted to talk about this more, and even be friends moving forward. It was what he had to give right now.

After she left he thought all day about the situation he had created, and what he could learn from the way he had behaved. He had always considered guilt an essentially useless emotion, but also believed that people had to take personal responsibility for their actions. More importantly, he wanted to think about what it was that made him keep repeating this behavior over and over, and what problem he was trying to solve from his own past life. It was certainly not a new question, and he was pretty familiar with the answers, but now he had to figure out what he was going to do about it. Something deep inside of him told him he had the chance at something spectacular in his life if he could somehow begin to put some of his own demons to bed.

His first instinct was to call Dr. Paul, but he knew he was taking advantage of that relationship, and wanted to think outside the box this time. Besides, he had followed his advice last time. He had “found the girl” whatever the hell that really meant, but clearly that didn’t solve any of his immediate problems. On the other hand he knew and believed that there was no such thing as chance encounters, and that perhaps this latest sequence of events in his life would make more sense when he had the luxury of looking back on them and seeing how they fit into his personal narrative.

He thought back to one of the first things Stephanie ever asked him. What was an empath exactly? He had spent his whole career dating back to his time as a student thinking about the idea of empathy, but the term “empath” had a bit of a different connotation. He decided he wanted to find out more about what it is this term exactly meant, and decided to do a little more research on the subject at the local bookstore.

“Empaths have a tendency to openly feel what is outside of them more so than what is inside of them. This can cause empaths to ignore their own needs.”

John read the passage with a sense of heightened curiosity. Was that him? A large part of him always hated talking about his own feelings, and he was resistant to the idea of therapy for many years because of this personality trait. One of his mentors had always told him that a therapist’s best tool was his own feelings and experiences, and he knew this was true, to a point. He had himself written extensively on the subject of countertransference, which refers to the feelings patients stir up in the therapists who they chose to tell their stories to.

John had always felt a little different about this subject though, and wondered if he wasn’t in a sense missing something that most of his colleagues seemed to get. He usually had a pretty good idea how a therapy session was going to go, simply by picking up on cues his patients were giving off in the initial moments. Often he had to wait for a person to find words to describe emotions that he already knew they were feeling, and part of his success as a therapist was in intuiting these feelings and then helping people find the words to describe them.

Conducting therapy didn’t take the toll on John that it did on many therapists. Many of his friends and colleagues in the field found it exceedingly difficult to deal with the way they felt after multiple sessions in a day, but this wasn’t the case with John. What if he was wrong about this though? What if his drinking, his depression, and his lack of intimacy were all some kind of symptom of feeling things too deeply? Was this possible? If it was it rocked the foundation of everything he believed about himself as a therapist.

Although he was often very wild and undisciplined in his personal life, John was the model of a calm, compassionate therapist in session. He attributed this to many year of working through personal issues, which allowed him to go into the sessions a rationale yet empathic voice of reason no matter what his clients chose to bring into therapy. But part of him knew this was bullshit. No one can really hear about other’s misery and suffering day after day and not have it take a toll, it simply wasn’t possible. John thought about this in his own life and realized that where he was concerned, this idea may go well beyond what happened in the confines in therapy. Thinking about this, he felt he was perhaps on the cusp of a significant discovery.

What if it was John’s relationship with the world that had been the source of so may of his difficulties and personal demons and challenges? It wasn’t a totally new thought to him, but knowing that there were people that had actually researched and written books on this subject was exciting to him. He thought back to his childhood, and how he had always felt things very deeply but also very privately as a way of avoiding being mocked for this heightened sensitivity that he felt.

As he was searching through his memory bank, he thought back to something he had seen when he was about 15. He had been visiting his dad when he was a kid and they had gone to the river for the day for a picnic. It had been a fun day hanging with his brothers and sisters, and at one point he had wandered over to a part of the river where the current was extremely fast. He looked up and saw a kid about his age standing on a rock near the river, and then was hit with an amazing pain in his stomach that nearly doubled him over.

He screamed out in pain and a few people looked over. The boy standing on the rock looked over at him, and the two of them locked eyes for what seemed to John like hours. That was the first time John had felt it. He knew. He felt everything the boy on the rock was feeling, and for that moment the two seemed to be transmitting a powerful unspoken understanding about life, pain, and loss. He could feel that the boy on the rock didn’t want to live anymore, and felt a great sense of urgency to do something to help save him.

But it was too late. The boy hurled himself into the current and was quickly swept away. He watched the boy flail in the water, and literally lost his own breath watching him gasp for air.

The boy had changed his mind about wanting to die, he could fell that too. He thrashed and flailed and tried to swim, and dozens of people in the park had now rushed into the water to try and help him. The boy eventually made it back to the shore with the help of these people, but he was unconscious and not responding to CPR. Eventually an ambulance came and took the boy away, but John knew the boy would never be the same again.

As he sat remembering this story he noticed he was crying, and was surprised at how powerful this memory was for him. He hadn’t thought about the boy in a long time, but now looking back wondered if that wasn’t a significant turning point in his life. He had started drinking shortly after that incident, and hadn’t really stopped since. Why had he blocked this out? What was it about this incident that seemed to propel him into the life he had now inhibited?  He wanted to read more.

“Empaths cry a lot, which makes most people, including the empath, uncomfortable. Because our culture does not embrace or value emotions, there’s not much permission to cry. As a result, when people see someone crying—emoting their feelings—they touch or hug the person, hand them a tissue, or offer “words of comfort,” all of which serve as a distraction that will usually stop the flow of emotions and, thus, the tears. (Why people are compelled to do this is different article in the making.) To give someone permission to feel what they feel—sadness, anger, fear, joy—and validate them by energetically holding space for them to keep feeling (and emoting)—is one of the most powerful, loving and healing acts (for both people) we can perform. For an empath, it’s a key to our survival. Being allowed to feel is a key to our survival. Talking about what we feel is paramount to our survival. Being able to cry about what we feel is mandatory for our survival.”

Rev. DebraRae

John read these words with great interest. One of the great secrets of his life was that he cried very often, in any number of different circumstances. He could however count on a single hand the people in his life that had actually seen him cry. This discrepancy perhaps went a long way in explaining his tendency to shy away from intimacy with others, and it was something he had only glossed over during his years of personal therapy. Why the disconnect, he wondered to himself? He watched people cry every day in therapy, and was very interested in exploring with people their inability to express themselves emotionally. Yet, in his own life this was a case of physician heal thyself.

He had always been fascinated by a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne that “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true.” He was beginning to believe that this quote was especially relevant in his own life. People knew him as a kind–hearted person, but he really had to examine how often in his interactions he was ever in a truly vulnerable position. The answer was almost never, and this had been especially true since he had received a bit of notoriety as an author.

The word “vulnerability” conjured up so many images, and for most of John’s life he had associated it with weakness. As a student he had been especially resistant to criticism, and hated being picked apart by people with heads higher on the totem pole than his. In relationships he had always picked younger women, and, although he had been in relationships with some amazing women, also seemed to arrange things where he was the person in the relationship with more of the power.

Where had this left him? Alone, for one, although this really wasn’t a source of great heartbreak for him. He liked having his freedom, and was able to produce a significant amount of work creatively as a result of this freedom. Still, he knew he was lying to himself when he rationalized he would be ok being by himself forever. He didn’t think this was how people were meant to live, and spent an extraordinary amount of time as a therapist working to rewire and repair frayed human connections. He somehow always applied a different standard to his own interactions though, and now as he got older he wanted to find out why.

He returned to his reading, and stopped to contemplate the idea that we are conditioned as a culture to stop a crying person from feeling as opposed to letting them purge and work through their difficult emotional feelings. It was a profound insight, and reading it made him consider how this idea had impacted his own life. Although he was very much favor of this idea for others, in his own life he chose to carry his crosses alone. Perhaps it was time to try something another way, but he was lost on how exactly he was supposed to go about this. This time he did call Dr. Paul and make an appointment, confused for the moment from trying to put all of the pieces of his personal story together.

Upon arriving at Dr. Paul’s office, his receptionist didn’t even attempt to hide her displeasure at seeing John, and the two of them sat together in uncomfortable silence for what seemed like an eternity. As he sat there thinking about this, he remembered an old episode of Seinfeld where George assumed that because his every instinct had been wrong, that therefore the opposite of this must be right. With this in mind he went up to Dr. Paul’s secretary, and struck up a conversation.

“You know I’m embarrassed to say this, but in all these years we’ve known each other, I don’t think I’ve ever known your first name, and I was sitting there thinking how rude of me this was,” John said sincerely.

“Well I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” she said back curtly.

He couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of her answer. He looked at her closely, and then, miraculously almost, he saw the faintest corner of a smile begin to form. Then, sizing him up, she began to laugh along with him, and soon the two of them were laughing and talking together about how and why it had been so uncomfortable between them for so many years. He found out her name was Mildred, which didn’t surprise him in the slightest. Still, he was delighted to find she had a sense of humor after all these years of awkwardness.

Dr. Paul came lumbering out of his office, and had to rub his eyes when he saw his wayward protégé and perpetually pissed off secretary giggling like a couple of schoolgirls.

“Umm, am I interrupting something here guys?” he asked suspiciously.

“Lighten up Doctor,” Mildred said sternly, and with that they all began to laugh, and John was very glad to see he hadn’t disturbed the Dr. Paul universe as badly as he originally feared.

“I was prepared to give you a lecture about being a pain in the ass, but seeing as how you made nice with my girl out there, I’m gonna cut you a little slack,” Dr. Paul said with a smile.

“I’ve had an epiphany my friend, the way I’ve been living keeps leading me back to the same place, so I decided to mix it up a little. What you saw out there was part of the fruits of this decision.”

“Um, John when I told you to find the girl, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,’ Dr. Paul said laughing, “But please do tell, what has led to this amazing transformation?”

“The thing is smartass, I’ve been thinking all week about something you said to me years ago when I was a student. You said the job of a psychologist was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I’m quite sure you stole it from someone else, but the point stands. I’ve been comfortable for way too long, and it was time to hold a bit of a mirror up to my face.”

“Great speech pal, but I need some specifics,’ Dr. Paul said more seriously this time. “What are you prepared to do differently? What have you learned? What are you doing NOW to make these changes?”

“Jesus you are a hard-ass,” John said, slightly hurt by the response. “Well for one thing I did some thinking. I thought about your question regarding empathy last week and I think I know what you were trying to say. Empathy is about love, although that word certainly has a hazy definition. My feeling was that you were implying that empathy was about some kind of larger love for people in general, for their flaws, their pettiness, their fuck-ups, for all of it really. More of a compassionate embrace of all of these stupid fucking things we do that bonds us all together.”

“That’s well spoken John, I can see why people buy your books, you always know just the right thing to say, but you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing different? You’re a charming guy, I know this, but you can’t bullshit me. Seriously, tell me about your actions. You’re too slick with words,” Dr. Paul said forcefully.

“Alright, you’re right. What have I done differently? Nothing. Quite the opposite actually. I found the girl, as you suggested, she came to my house, and found me shacked up with a woman I met at a bar. So no, my actions haven’t been different. You’re right, I’m an asshole. I’m here because I’m a little confused, and don’t know exactly what to do next,” John fired back with more intensity then he intended.

“Alright John, so you found her and then sabotaged it somehow, I can’t sit on a soapbox about that, I’ve certainly done my share of self-sabotage. You know me pal, and you know goddamn well I’m not gonna tell you what to do,” Dr. Paul continued. “The question you have to ask yourself is what are you willing to do to make your life different? You mentioned the relationship between love and empathy earlier. I think that’s an important lead for you to follow. What do you love John? What have you ever loved?

John left Dr. Paul’s office with a smile. He remembered another old shrink telling him that you haven’t done your job if your client doesn’t walk away at least a little pissed off at you, and John was definitely a little pissed at Dr. Paul. Still, his questions had some merit. What did John love?

He thought back to something he had read from Irv Yalom, one of his favorite authors on the subject of psychology and in particular the patient-therapist relationship. Yalom suggested that a therapist had to find something to love about all of his clients, and that without this love therapy was ineffective. It was a radical position in many ways, and ran contrary to the work of many prominent therapists, including the highly influential Albert Ellis, who suggested that how a therapist felt about his patients was mostly irrelevant.

John thought back to his first years as a therapist. He had gotten highly involved in every case he took on, and it was Dr. Paul who eventually noticed this and advised him about learning to keep some boundaries to avoid a massive and exhausting flame out. He had cut his caseload back at the time, but still found himself getting highly involved with people, as was the case with Kim right now.

He returned again to the subject of love. He did love most of his patients, in a sense the way he imagined a parent loved a child. He hurt when they hurt, celebrated their small accomplishments with great joy, and encouraged them every step of the way. Still, another part of him found this painful and exhausting, much like he knew many parents did. He had perhaps turned to writing as a response to that pain, and slowly the characters in his books became these children, without all of the real-life consequences and emotional investment.

Why did John keep finding ways to avoid this emotional investment? That was the important question. He knew that fear was a central theme in almost everyone’s life, and he was certainly no exception to this. Was he avoiding hurt? Heartbreak? Loss? He knew there was no more futile exercise. These things waited for us in our lives regardless of how we tried to run from them. He scolded himself mentally for thinking in generalities. What was he avoiding and what were the fears behind this? He was hearing Dr. Paul’s voice in his head, and chuckled lightly to himself. He was officially back in therapy. Hearing your therapist’s voice in your head is a sure sign.

He felt like he was on to something relevant here, and figuring out how love and pain intersected in his life seemed important. Did he avoid relationships because of the attending pain? That was an easy one, he knew he did, rationalizing that he was just as comfortable alone. He was more comfortable, but that hardly seemed to be the point of this short journey we have here on earth. Love and pain, love and pain, he couldn’t get this phrase out of his head, and knew that he could explore this question further in his own life he could begin to unlock some answers. He returned to one of his greatest inspirations, Joseph Campbell to help him further clarify his thoughts on the subject.

“For when the heart insists on its destiny, resisting the general blandishment, then the agony is great; so too the danger. Forces, however, will have been set in motion beyond the reckoning of the senses.  Sequences of events from the corners of the world will draw gradually together, and miracles of coincidence bring the inevitable to pass. ”

Joseph Campbell

John read the following passage slowly and carefully, although it had been a guiding force in his life, and the basis of two books he had written on his own, he wanted to take it in and absorb it this time. “When the heart insists on its destiny.” John had always thought this was about fear, but now for the first time he thought about it in terms of love. Campbell and Jung had both talked about love as a kind of joining of forces that helped a person find the missing parts of themselves. Was this the heart’s “destiny?”

John thought about this for most of the day, and for the first time really began to contemplate an idea that had been crystallizing in his head for some time. If he found romantic love, would it then exponentially increase his love of the larger world? Were the two not just interrelated, but absolutely intertwined? John had rejected that idea for most of his life, believing that the fairy tale myths of modern Hollywood were short-sighted and even dangerous. Still, they were myths that were based on stories from the beginning of time, and John vowed to keep an open heart and mind about the subject.

He spent most of the day reading Campbell, and while he did made a number of notes about things he thought were relevant to his own search. John thought a lot about his own unorganized emotions, and how this lack of organization impacted his life for better or for worse. He knew he gave often of his love and of his heart, but also that he usually closed up the shop when an individual person got too close to his emotional core. Why was this? If Campbell was right, he should feel a desire to complete the missing piece of himself and become whole. Why did he keep swatting this piece away?

He thought a lot about how the idea of being an empath may also play into this, but was also very careful not to use that as some kind of rationalization for avoiding intimacy. Still, the question persisted; was there something unusual about him that didn’t fit with a basic human desire since the beginning of time? He knew that was a little dramatic, but still wondered if he perhaps felt things so deeply that it was difficult for him to maintain personal relationships.

This conjured up all kinds of questions for John about what the actual science of this may be, and if there was an explanation as to how his brain actually functioned. He had seen brain scans done on sociopathic people before, and had observed how their brains did not seem to register any empathy whatsoever when watching other people in pain. All of the science behind these kinds of tests were controversial, and in part based on the premise that people possessed something called “mirror neurons” which explained on a biological level how one human feels pain when he or she watches another one suffer. It had also been suggested that autistic people lack these mirror neurons, which inhibits their ability to read and transmit emotional cues.

According to one theory, autism and empathy exist on opposite sides of a spectrum between complete lack of feeling and a sense of being utterly overwhelmed with emotions. Men tended to fall more to the autistic side, while women more to the empathic side, but really most people fell into the average range of this equation.. There were however extremes, and John had truly begun to contemplate if he was one of these extreme cases.

As he was thinking about these things, John’s mind drifted back to another time and place. He was on his grandparent’s farm and he was 8 years old. He had wandered off into the Apple orchards and gotten hopelessly lost, when inexplicably, and seemingly out of nowhere, he happened upon a family of Mexican people eating the unripened Apples off of the trees. It had broken his 8-year old heart. He remembered doubling over in pain, and actually feeling how hungry they were to have to sneak into the Apple fields and eat this fruit that wasn’t even fit for healthy consumption.

The family had become alarmed, and had actually carried him back to his family farm, despite their fears of being exposed as illegal immigrants. He remembered his grandparents arguing as he lay in bed recovering, and how upset his grandfather had been that his wife had fed these people before sending them on their way. His grandpa had referred to them as “savages” at the time, and John had no idea what in the world that meant. He remembered being troubled though, and also feeling highly unsettled and disturbed. He hoped this memory would recede into the distance and let him get some sleep.

But sometimes memories come back. John had dreamt of his grandparent’s farm at least once a week for a decade, and wondered often about why this memory had become so deeply etched in his subconscious mind. There seemed to be a powerful lesson here about empathy, and despite putting forth an amazing effort into understanding this recurring dream, John had never really put all of the pieces together. Sometimes they come back. This phrase now popped into his head. What did that mean? What came back? Memories? Dreams? Lovers? He didn’t know, but all of a sudden he became very interested in the question.

He had spent nearly an entire day reading and thinking about these things, and finally found some piece from these words;

“Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, This is what I need. It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there. Any disaster that you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”

John was learning.

John woke up the next morning with an odd rush of anxiety. Something was going to happen today, he was sure of it. He was going to see Kim today, and that was something he wanted to be sharp for, but there was also something else. He felt an odd mix of pending doom mixed with a kind of hope. Some significant change was on the horizon.

Driving out to Kim’s residence, John tried to put this feeling out of his mind. He wanted to give her the best of himself and be totally in the moment with her, and anxiety made that all but impossible. He felt like he had made some important internal strides lately, and he was dying to see Stephanie and talk about a number of things with her. He felt like he missed her very badly although he barely knew her. Even still, his feelings for her were strong.

As he pulled up to the driveway, he saw that Kim was waiting for him on the porch. It was a good sign he thought, and he even picked up on the faintest hint of a smile on her face. He was glad to see her.

“Hey kiddo, good to see you, what’s knew?”

“Oh, a few things, I guess. I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Do you mind if we walk again?” She asked excitedly.

John picked up on some good energy from Kim, and was encouraged while also a little cautious. He thought of a quote by Mitch Album, that “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” He knew that Kim has been badly damaged, but it was his hope that she wasn’t totally shattered. He would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen, but knew it would take a lot of work.

“So you seem happy today Kim and it’s sure nice to see you smile, what’s going on with you?” he asked curiously.

“Well the thing is, I met this boy. He’s 14 and he’s really cute. I’ve really liked my new school and Mrs. Corcoran has been great. I feel like I’m getting to start over. No one knows about me there and I don’t get teased.”

“Wow, well Kim I’m very proud of how well you’re doing. I know Mrs. Corcoran and, yes, she is very nice,” John said as neutrally as he could muster.

“She knows you too,” Kim chuckled back. “Maybe I’m not the only one here with a little crush.”

John laughed out loud at that as they continued to walk. Damn kids were perceptive sometimes. He felt 13 for this second but resisted the urge to pump Kim for information about her teacher. Still, he was dying to know.

“Kim tell me about this boy. How did you meet him?” John said, sounding like a concerned father.

“He’s in my class. He doesn’t know about my situation though, and I don’t want to ever tell him,” she said sharply.

“Yea, I could see why you’d feel like that. I just hope he’s nice to you. You deserve someone to be nice to you. I hope we can talk a little more about what it’s like to have such a big secret to keep. One thing I want you to remember though, is that you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re a good kid who survived a very hard situation. Keep that in mind Ok?”

With that Kim began to gently cry. Although John didn’t intend to cause her any pain with his comments, he also knew that she needed to work though this. People are quick to try and convince someone who is crying to stop, but he knew this was often a mistake. Legitimate grieving was an absolutely integral part of healing, and he wanted Kim to begin the process.

“Sorry if this is hard to talk about,” he continued. “I want to just remind you that I will never talk about or tell anyone about what we talk about unless I think it’s gonna lead to you getting hurt. Then I have to say something. But you can trust me and I will listen. I promise.”

“I know John, I know,” she said with a smile.

He liked it when she called him John.

On the way home John was feeling happy. Although he knew it would be an exceptionally long road for Kim, she was showing signs of resilience and he was encouraged. She seemed to have both her kindness as well as her sense of humor intact, and John knew both of these things would be tremendous assets in helping her cope.

John messed around with the radio and tried to find something pleasant for the road. He settled on Don Henley’s, “in a New York minute,” and began singing along with the music. His mind drifted off to the beautiful Irish-looking woman that had invaded his mind for weeks now, and he continued to daydream about her before he heard a loud boom. Then everything faded to Black.

John woke up wearing a hospital gown in unfamiliar surroundings. The last thing he remembered was Don Henley singing about how life could change in a New York minute, which seemed strangely prophetic given the circumstances. How long had he been here? Was he in a coma? John felt very alone in this moment, and wondered how bad his injuries really were. He was scared.

Eventually the doctor came in and explained to John what had happened. The accident had happened the day before, and he had lost consciousness for nearly 24 hours. His back had experienced some damage, and the original fear was that there would be some paralysis. A lot more tests were needed, but it looked like John would at the very least be off of his feet for a while.

John thought about his prognosis for most of the day. He had lived 30 plus years living exactly how he wanted, with very few consequences for his admittedly hedonistic lifestyle. John knew that he had no one to take care of him, although this was a thought he usually managed to put out of his head. Now a rainy day had finally arrived.

John found himself spiraling further and further into self-pity, and knew this was a dangerous road to go down. Although he didn’t have a family of his own, he did have people that depended on him, and he needed to start putting a plan together. He was particularly concerned about Kim, as he knew providing some stability and consistency in her life was vitally important.

John thought back to the previous morning, and the feeling he had experienced that something significant was going to happen, His sensors had known something was up, and the phrase “pending doom” that was in his head yesterday now seemed appropriate. Still, he couldn’t help but think this was also a kind of opportunity, although he was hard pressed at this moment to think of what that might be. He put it out if his head for a moment and began making a list. He had a lot of people to call.

Kim was particularly worried when he spoke to her, and he did his best to ease her mind. He was hoping he would only miss a week of appointments, and promised her he would do everything  in his power to maintain their usual schedule. Still, he picked up on same disappointment in her voice, and a wave of guilt rose up in his troubled mind. He was a therapist, and although he often took himself for granted, it was becoming clear to him that his patients needed him very much. All of a sudden he felt very heavy.

All of the emotional activity the day had unexpectedly contained had exhausted him, and after finishing his calls, John fell into a very deep sleep. His dreams were strange that night, and included visions of a nursing home which John resided in located in the middle of a busy intersection. Suddenly a car bolted directly into the home, and before John could get out of the way, he jerked up in bed awake. Gathering himself, he looked around and saw that he was still in the hospital. He had to rub his eyes however when he gathered focus and saw both Dr. Paul and Stephanie sitting at the end of his bed, chatting like they had known each other for years.

Strange bedfellows.

“Must have been quite a dream John,” Dr. Paul said with a laugh.

“Haha, yes Dr. Asshole, it was, thanks for your concern,” John said while laughing. “I see you met Stephanie. Hello by the way Stephanie. So nice to see you, but, how in the world did you know I was here?”

“Kim told me John. She and I have gotten quite close since she started school with us, and she was very worried about you. You mean the world to her you know. Maybe you didn’t know that,” Stephanie explained reproachingly.

John looked over at Dr. Paul and saw the slightest bit of a gleam in his eye. He was quite sure Dr. Paul loved to hear him get scolded like this, and he reminded himself to give him shit for this at a later date.

“I’m gonna let you guys talk for a minute John,” Dr. Paul said while grabbing his coat. “A friend of mine is here on another floor with a broken hip. Jesus I am getting old. Anyway, I’ll come back and see you in a little while alright?

“Alright doctor, go spread your sunshine somewhere else for a while,” John said laughing.

And with that Dr. Paul made his exit, leaving John with this mysterious and beautiful woman that he wanted so much to explore. Although the hospital wasn’t exactly first date material, he felt a rush of excitement just being in her presence.

“I have to tell you Stephanie, although I am really glad to see you, I am amazingly curious as to what you and the good doctor there were talking about. Do you know each other?” John asked curiously.

“No, but we talked for a couple of hours while you were out. He’s quite an interesting man, and he obviously cares a lot about you,” she continued. “He was your therapist wasn’t he?”

“Did he say that? I’m not totally sure I would call him my therapist. More of a mentor slash archenemy,” John said laughing.

“Well you are very important to him. He’s a tremendously empathic person, that much was obvious. I also thought I picked up on a great sadness in him though. Like he has experienced a tremendous amount of loss,” she explained seriously.

“He lost the great love of his life about 10 years ago, and since then he has never really been the same,” John explained. “They had one of those crazy rare connections that comes along maybe once in a lifetime.”

“Crazy rare connections ha? I felt like that might be it. Like maybe he had some kind of great love in his heart that was on hold or something like that.”

“On hold?” John asked. “I like that, and can kind of relate to it in my own life. I’ve always felt like I had a ton of love to give someone, but never quite found the way to do it. Man, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I guess being in the hospital I’m feeling pretty vulnerable right now.”

Rather then respond, Stephanie came over and put her hand on John’s face and held it there. It was one of the most comforting things he could ever recall experiencing, and he reached up and touched her cheek as well. They didn’t say anything for quite some time, but eventually they both succumbed to their feelings and shared a passionate kiss,,

John felt like he was 14 again…

They sat and kissed for a while, both of them wanting to make up for all of the time they had wasted over the last several weeks. Eventually Stephanie just crawled into John’s bed and laid beside him. It was one of the most intimate moments of his life. They kissed again, and held each other until it finally came time for her to go, although neither one of them wanted the moment to come to an end.

“So what happens next?” John said as she got her things together.

“Well part of that is going to be up to you,” she said quietly. “But it’s clear you’re going to need a little help for a while. Will you let me help you John?”

“I don’t think there’s anything I would like more,” was his reply.

An hour later Dr. Paul came strolling back in wearing a Cheshire cat grin. John had gotten quite astute at reading his facial expressions over the years, and knew that his old mentor was terribly amused.

“I gotta hand it to you John,” he said smiling. “I’ve seen guys go to great lengths to get a girl, but I think this takes the cake. Can’t say I blame you though. She’s quite an amazing woman.”

“She sure is. It sounds incredibly strange, but I’d get in a thousand car wrecks if it meant I got to spend an hour like I just spent.”

“Jesus man,” Dr. Paul said sharply. “Do you really think it’s about the car accident? If so I’m pretty disappointed in your powers of perception. You’ve been afforded a glimpse pal. A glimpse of what it’s like to share every aspect of your life with someone. Not just the romance or the sex, those things are easy. I’m talking about someone taking care of you when you’re sick. Sharing your life when your body gets old and gets sick. For the first time in your life you are in a truly vulnerable position. Kind of scary doing it alone I’m guessing? Does any of this make sense to you?”

“It all does. Yesterday I had a feeling that I was on the cusp of a very big change. I think I’m just now starting to glimpse what life might be like if I stay on the road I have been traveling. I have to admit I didn’t like what I saw Doc. I know I may be talking at least partially out of fear here, but this woman just feels right to me. I know I’ve said that before, and maybe this feeling could fade, but I don’t think so. As you are so fond of saying, when the student is ready the teacher appears. I think it’s possible I found my teacher,” John said with a long and heavy breath.

“I would like nothing more for you John, I really would, but as you also know I’m fond of saying, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and your track record with women isn’t so hot,” Dr. Paul continued. “I want you to think about where this all may be going. Really think about it. What could trip you up? What happens when you start to get bored? I’m not trying to piss in your cornflakes here buddy, but these are important questions.”

“I’m getting a little pissed off here Paul, which means I guess that you might be on to something. Although it pains me to say it, I think it would be best if I stayed in therapy for a while when I’m trying to figure all this out. I guess I would even be willing to start paying you,” John said with a laugh.

“You’re goddamn right you will, but John, lets be really clear about something. This is not gonna just be me holding your hand while you’re trying to maintain a relationship. You know damn well that’s not what I do. I want you to really explore where it is you come from and what it is you want to do with this precious little time you have been given,” Dr. Paul said sternly.

“I don’t need or want you to hold my hand, Paul, although I know I act like that sometimes,” John answered back. “I just think you might be the guy to talk to you about this, because as far as I can tell, love is what saved your life. I remember you and Susan when you were together, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I think I’m starting to understand that it is not analysis, or even empathy that may save my life. It is love. That’s hard for me to say believe me, but I’ve gotten to the point in my life when I’m asking myself, if not now, when?”

“Ok John, Ok,” Dr. Paul said softly. “In spite of everything I’m rooting for you. You’ve been like a son to me and believe me, it’s not easy to see you in pain. If I’m a hardass with you it’s because I think that’s what you need, but maybe I’ve been a little hard on you considering you’re lying here in a hospital bed. I want you to be happy, I really do,” he said with a pause.

“But you’re gonna have to do the heavy lifting.”

Having an unexpected amount of free time on his hands, John had been doing a great deal of reading. Wanting to expose himself to some new ways of thinking, John had begun reading the work of a relatively obscure Polish Psychiatrist named Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Dabrowski’s primary theory suggested that as people progressed through life, portions of their personality “disintegrated” as they began to integrate new ways of coping and more creative ways of solving problems. He suggested that it is often a crisis that spurred on this positive disintegration, and John thought a lot about this in terms of his own situation. He was in crisis, that was true, but he also felt a part of him slipping away.

In particular John knew that throughout his whole life, he responded to people with charm when confronted with any kind of difficult assignment. Now John faced perhaps his most difficult by facing up to his own avoidant behavior. He was actually quite excited about the possibility of change, and continued with his reading making notes and writing down a number of short term goals.

John was also very interested in a model called the “Stages of change,” which suggested that all human’s that experience change go through a number of different steps, beginning with precontemplation, then contemplation, and finally ending with some kind of action. It occurred to John that he had walked dozens of his patients though these stages, but that he had never taken the time to see how this worked in his own life. It was a shame it had taken a near-fatal car accident to make him see this, as he had only a vague notion that something in his life needed to change for decades now. Even still, he reminded himself that there was no sense beating himself up now, and wherever you go, there you are. He was still excited.

John’s enthusiasm waned a little following a session with his physical therapist, who put John through a workout that nearly brought him to tears. He was out of shape, and one of his immediate goals was to begin to put his body back together through regular exercise. He also wanted to cut back on his drinking, which was one of his most useful tools in avoiding dealing with big portions of his life. He always rationalized that it helped fuel his writing, which was at least partially true. He was going to have to learn to do a lot of things over again.

Later that day John did a phone session with one of his older patients, who asked him repeatedly if he was going to die. Yes, he told her, indeed he was, but how he spent his time until then was what really counted. She was not amused, and was asking the question with all sincerity. Still, it did in fact dawn on him at that moment, perhaps for the first time ever. He was going to die, almost did die. If they were going to write his obituary today, he was quite sure the story would be incomplete. He still had a lot to do.

John called a couple more of his patients over the day, and was continually surprised by how worried everyone seemed to be about him. He knew he gave a lot to his patients and had touched a lot of their lives, but as he was making these calls something dawned on him for perhaps the first time. All of the energy he had given to his patients, and essentially to everyone he came into contact with, basically flowed in one direction. No wonder people were often so confused around him. He gave freely of his love and compassion to others.

But he never let them love him back.

When John finally got ready to leave the hospital, the doctor asked him if he had anybody to take him home. Although the question was quite a literal one, he thought about it on a lot deeper level. In a literal sense, his car was totaled, and he really didn’t have another way home. He had spoken with a nurse who was going to come into help him with some of his basic activities until he got back on his feet. What was most puzzling to him was Stephanie had promised she would give him a lift home. Where was she?

He called for a cab and thought about this all the way home. Although she absolutely felt like a twin soul to him, he knew very little about the logistics of her life, except that she was a teacher, probably an empath, and lived with her boyfriend. Perhaps it was selfish of him to think she could just drop everything in her life for him. Furthermore, perhaps she was wondering what his intentions were towards her, although he instinctively felt she knew how strongly he felt for her. Still, he had met her at a bar the first time they met and they had spent the night together. Perhaps she herself was no stranger to reckless behavior?

Arriving home, he realized it was Groundhog’s Day, which he had always felt was a strange kind of day of renewal. It was an annual tradition of his to watch the movie of the same name, and he secretly had always felt the movie was a philosophical masterpiece as well as being very funny.

He had come to this conclusion as a young college student when he first stumbled upon the idea of what Nietzsche called eternal recurrence. Essentially what Nietzsche suggested, was that it is a possibility that we are destined to live this same life over and over again, with all of it’s heartbreak, disappointment, loss, as well as joy. He acknowledged that this could be absolutely harrowing and depressing, but that there was also another possibility. What if this was the greatest thing we could hear?  If this was an amazing gift of awareness that shocked us into some kind of heightened existential awareness? Anyway he also thought the movie was pretty funny, and settled in to watch it despite the fact that it was still quite uncomfortable to lie down.

After the movie ended, he though even more about the idea of eternal return as it related to his own life. Would he do it all over again? Suffer through all of the same mistakes and staggering and stumbling. He was almost sure he would, and right now, despite his body being in fairly significant pain, he was beginning to see the power of the journey itself.

He considered grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, but then thought better of it considering the amount of painkillers he was on. Every trip off the couch was a struggle, and he tried to plan each trip strategically. As the hours passed, he still had not heard from Stephanie, and he began to grow concerned that something might have happened to her. He knew she had his cell phone number, but wondered if perhaps she had lost it. He hobbled over to his home phone in the other room, which was also where his office calls were routed. Playing his messages he heard this-

“Umm John, hi.. I don’t really know what to say. I’m sure I let you down and I want to be honest about something. I felt something I had never felt before with you the other day, and honestly it scared the shit out of me. I thought I was on solid ground, and I wasn’t. I’ve been drinking for a couple of days now and don’t really know what to d know. I’m sorry I let you down.”

John took a deep breath and though a lot about what he had just heard. He thought he was the scared one, but at least for today, it seemed like things had changed. He felt for her a great deal, having been down the same road more times than he could remember. He thought back to Dr. Paul’s oft-repeated idea, that when the student is ready the teacher appears.

But what happened when the teacher had a meltdown?

John began the day with some stretching and light exercise. It had now been over a week since he had been in the accident, and through the combination of his hospital stay and abstinence from alcohol, he had lost 10 quick pounds. His back was terribly sore, and he made a mental note to appreciate what a wonderful gift it is to have the free and uninhibited use of one’s entire body. It was something he had always taken for granted until it was now gone.

John thought a bit about how he should handle this situation with Stephanie. She sounded pretty confused and messed up, and he wanted to help her work through this if he could. On the other hand he was messed up, and wanted to make a thoughtful choice as to how he should proceed. He thought back to an old line Dr. Paul used to use with regard to psychotherapy; it was a mess helping a bigger mess.

Instinctively John thought he should slow down with Stephanie, but also realized that part of this may be his natural inclination to pull away from people when they got to close. He had some deeply habituated ways of thinking that had got him to this point, and he vowed to hold them up to more serious scrutiny rather than simply accepting them blindly.

As the day progressed, John began to write in his journal to help work through some of the ideas that had been knocking around in his head. Although he was often insistent that his patients keep a journal to promote more mindful living, it was something he rarely did himself. Physicians rarely heal themselves.

As John continued to write, he felt he was on the cusp of an important idea. He was thinking of how Jung hypothesized that it was at midlife we begin to desire a sense of deeper individuation and exploration of hidden parts of ourselves. As he speculated as to what these hidden parts may be, he heard a knock, and was mildly irritated by the interruption. He hobbled to the door, and there stood Stephanie, clutching a bottle of wine and looking like she had consumed several already. She looked at John and then grabbed him and pulled him into a kiss, which was a jolt to his already injured back.

“Oh, sorry I hurt you John. Love always hurts a little though doesn’t it?” she said laughing. She entered the house and went straight to the kitchen, rummaging through his drawers looking for a corkscrew.

“Um, Stephanie, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you, but can we sit down for a second?” John asked in his best therapist’s voice.

“Yea, yea John I know we need to talk, but I need a little wine right now without a lecture. I just dumped my boyfriend and I’m a little bit messed up right now, so if you wouldn’t mind,” she said as she handed John the bottle, which was a twist off..

“Ok, ok, here you go,” he said, twisting the bottle lose and pouring her a small glass. “But could you at least let me make you a little something to eat?”

So John quickly whipped up some pasta, hoping the thick red sauce would help her absorb some of the alcohol. She stared intently at him as he cooked, but seemed too distracted to actually lend a hand. He was impressed that he still remembered how to do this stuff, although he was a pretty good cook when he took the time to do it, which was almost never.

As they sat and ate, Stephanie apologized over and over to John and explained that it had been as rough couple of days untangling herself from her boyfriend. He felt for her, and as she spoke, it dawned on him that she had rearranged her whole life at least partially as a result of her interactions with him. Normally this would be a red flag to him, but a big part of him was able to look at her and visualize sitting together when they were 80. But just right this second, they both had some stubborn remaining demons to extinguish.

Later in the evening, they settled into a pleasant evening together, with her resting her head in his lap. He gently stroked her hair as she settled in to sleep. When he went to shut the TV off, she awoke with a start, and looked at John and began kissing him passionately, quickly removing her clothing as she did.

“Whoa, whoa, Stephanie,” he said with a great deal of regret. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Don’t you want to make love with me John?” she said with more than a little hurt in her voice.

“More than you can possibly imagine,” was his response. “But this has been a rough day for both of us and there’s no need to rush. “In fact,” he said touching her face. “I hope I’m still making love with you when I’m a broken down old man.”

“You’re already a broken down old man John,” she said as they both burst out laughing.  And with that they walked hand in hand to bed, holding each other all night as they drifted slowly off to sleep.

John woke up to the smell of sizzling bacon, and thought he must be somewhere in a dream. The smell conjured up memories of his grandparent’s farm from his childhood, when his grandmother would wake up at the crack of dawn to cook breakfast for everyone. It was a wonderful memory.

Stephanie came into the room a minute later with a tray full of food. Quite sure he didn’t own bacon or a tray, he surmised she had gone shopping this morning, and he was thoroughly impressed by her domestic skills.

“This looks wonderful Stephanie,” he said with a smile, pulling her towards her as he did. At first they kissed slowly, and then she set the trey down and crawled into bed with him. They continued to kiss, and then, after a long moment of looking into each other’s eyes, they both instinctively knew it was time.

They stayed in bed most of the morning making love, and for John the connection was so intense he had to choke back tears. It occurred to him that he had waited a lifetime to feel like this, and now that he had, he felt a pang of regret for all that he had missed. He sat and admired her beautiful form as she settled back into sleep. How did he get so lucky?

Later that afternoon they got around to eating the breakfast she had put together, laughing and talking as they ate. In the back of his mind he thought about how all of this was going to work logistically, but then tried to put these thoughts out of his mind. He reminded himself that he had been gifted a wonderful moment, and that never again would he sit and laugh with this wonderful woman having just made love for the first time. He was learning to smell the roses.

That evening the conversation turned a little more serious, as John noticed Stephanie’s mood seem to change.

“Not that I am an expert empath by any means, but I do detect a little disturbance in the force,” John continued. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“All of a sudden I was thinking about Kim,” she continued. “She’s seemed very troubled lately and she won’t tell me why. I know about confidentiality and all, but what do you think? What can I do to help her?”

“I spoke with her on the phone the other day and she seemed a bit worried about my accident. We’ve grown closer over the last couple of weeks, and I’m definitely concerned she feels on some level that I’m abandoning her,” John explained

“Yea she has been extremely worried about you, and I know that is part of it. She’s come to see you as a kind of dad.”

“Well that is on some level one of the ideas in therapy, according to one theory anyway. The therapist in a sense reaparents the person coming to see them, and replaces an old maladaptive pattern of communication with encouragement and understanding. In Kim’s case she not only needs this kind of thing, but quite literally has no physical father in her life right now. I found myself acting like a dad the other day when she was telling me about her new boyfriend.”

“I find myself drawn to the idea of therapy as a kind of undoing of prior emotional family experiences,” Stephanie responded. “I feel like that in the classroom a lot as well. You see kids that are so tough on the outside but inside just dying for some kind of love and validation. I’ve seen that with Kim as well. So far having sex was the only way that she could get love from a parent, and that is so sick I don’t know if it can be undone,” she said as she softly began to cry.

John thought about what she said and was highly impressed by her empathy as well as her therapeutic acumen. He thought back to an old lesson he remembered regarding group therapy. Essentially it was suggested that the group becomes a recapitulation of the family itself, and that by observing and working with the in-process communications in the group, you could observe how someone behaved on their family.  Specifically John thought about what the therapeutic value of Kim spending time with both he and Stephanie together might be. He knew there were some possible ethical questions here, and didn’t want to mess around with Kim’s already fragile psyche if there was a chance he and Stephanie might not last.

“I have a question for you Stephanie and I want you to think about it a little before you answer,” John said seriously.

But before he could continue she walked over to John and kissed his forehead. “You’re thinking that it would be a good idea for the three of us to spend some time together, right? Well I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said with a smile.

“And John”

“Yeah?”

“I’m in this for the long haul if that eases your mind a little.”

On the way out to Kim’s foster house, John looked out the window with a smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been a passenger in a car, and he felt strangely safe having given up control to someone else. He felt like someone was taking care of him.

As they pulled up, Kim was sitting on the porch waiting for them to arrive. Seeing the both of them together was quite a site for her, and as she walked over to the car to get in, she couldn’t help but tease them a little.

“Well, well, well, I was hoping this day might finally come. So nice to see both of you, both of you together that is,” Kim said with a mischievous smile.

“Why do I feel like I’m back in the 7^th grade again Kim?” John replied with a laugh. “Anyway good to see you, how does Pizza sound for lunch?”

“Whatever you say doctor,” she fired back. John couldn’t help but notice that the way she called him “doctor” was suspiciously similar to the way he addressed Dr. Paul. The synchronicity of this was not lost on him.

As they sat down at the Pizza place, the three of them talked and laughed, and settled in to a comfortable sense of familiarity. John had been a little concerned that this would be awkward for her, but thinking back, he realized Kim had hinted around about he and Stephanie before they were even together. Maybe she was an empath as well?

“Kim what’s been going on since I’ve seen you,” John asked curiously. “So sorry I missed our appointment the other day, but man, I hate to admit it but I’m a terrible driver.”

“Yea, I kind of figured that,” she said laughing. “I’ve been really worried about you and missed talking to you. A couple of things have happened since we last met, some stuff with that boy we were talking about.” Looking over at Stephanie, she continued, “I’m not really sure what I’m allowed to say in front of Mrs. Corcoran, but I have some questions about some stuff and I don’t know who to ask. I guess you could say it is women’s stuff.”

John resisted the urge to chuckle, as he had a good idea about what Kim was talking about. He felt like he was perhaps being gently dismissed from the conversation, but also felt glad that Stephanie was also here to answer any questions she might have about sex, periods, and other subjects that girls are just more comfortable talking to other women about.

“You know Kim, there are a couple of things I want to say,” John said in his serious voice. “I am first and foremost your therapist, and if there are ever things you want to talk about that are just between us, that still stands. If there are some things, some woman things you are more comfortable talking about with Stephanie, that’s O.k. too. Just know that we both care about you very much, and understand if there are things that are easier to talk about with just one of us.”

“Thanks for making that easy John,” she said looking him in the eyes. “So if you wouldn’t mind, could you beat it for a minute?”

And with that John took his cue and hobbled over to the counter on his crutches. He was learning how to use them more efficiently, and decided he was even strong enough to play a game of Galaga which was in the restaurant’s arcade. As he made his way across the restaurant, he looked at all of the families sitting together, and for perhaps the first time in his life didn’t see a life that was utterly foreign from his own. It startled him a little as he looked around and saw white families with Asian kids, a gay couple with what looked to be their adopted children, older people with young children, and nearly every other combination a person could think of. It reminded him that families came in all shapes and sizes.

A half hour and several quarters later, the girls came up arm and arm to see how he was doing. They hit him up for a few quarters, and he laughed when he thought about this ritual from his own childhood. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon laughing and playing video games, and for a day at least as 3 people who simply enjoyed each other’s company. John knew he was still Kim’s therapist, and that they had a great deal of work to do in therapy, but for now, modeling for her some kind of normal life seemed pretty therapeutic.

Therapeutic for all of them.

On the way home John thought a lot about the idea of family, and how our experiences with our families cast such a monstrous shadow over everything else we do. He knew because of some of his own family experiences he had always been hesitant about starting his own family, but now was rethinking this idea. People can learn and people can change. He had preached this as a therapist for years, but was just now starting to see how these things might truly happen in his own life.

Kim seemed upset to have to say goodbye to them, and when they dropped her off he again considered the ethical implications of this approach. She was getting very attached to both of them, and sudden disruptions and abrupt changes could have a very negative affect on her life right now. He reminded himself that less then a week ago Stephanie went on a 3 day drinking binge, and that he was also not always a model of responsible behavior. It seemed like something they should talk about, but for now he was very much trying to trust and enjoy such a wonderful feeling. Still, for him, everything changed when a kid’s welfare entered into it.

As they rode home, John reached over and put his arm around Stephanie’s shoulder. Watching how sensitive and kind she was with Kim endeared her to him even more, and even stealing little touches from her brought him a great deal of happiness. She looked over at him and smiled, and once again seemed to read his mind.

“John, I hope you’re not getting annoyed, but I can tell what you’re thinking,” she continued.  ‘You’re wondering if two people like us should be getting so involved in a little girl’s life when we can barely manage our own without falling down half the time. It’s a fair question and I’m thinking about it too. This all feels so right to me, and traditionally when I’ve felt like this I look over my shoulder to see when the other shoe is going to drop. I don’t mean to be presumptions, but being with you now feels like something I’ve been preparing for my whole life. Like I’ve made the same mistakes, fallen back into all the familiar holes enough times that I finally get a chance to learn from these mistakes and be happy now.”

“You’re not presumptuous, and I feel exactly the same way. At first I thought of it like maybe we were saving each other, but the more I think about it the more I think that isn’t right. All of those mistakes, all of those dumb things we’ve done, all of that time spent wandering alone in the dark. It brought us here. Both of here, together. That’s probably why it feels so comfortable between us. We’ve made so many of the same mistakes and felt so lost for so long that it would be virtually impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t lived it. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I feel understood, truly understood by someone for the first time, maybe ever. So I don’t think we’re saving each other, but that we’ve found each other so we can take all of these mistakes we’ve made and make something amazing out of the experience together,” John said passionately.

“Man you have a silver tongue buddy,’”she said with a smile. “How much do you remember about the first time we met? Do you remember any of the things you said? Because just so you know it was a speech like that, that made me decide to go home with you.”

“Uh I’d have to plead the fifth on that one, but my guess is I sensed it in you even then,” John explained. “Even that first morning I woke up with you I knew something in my world was about to change. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but in retrospect I’m pretty goddamn glad I was so slick.”

“You were more than slick John. You were totally honest and sensitive and kind, and I was knocked out by talking to you for a couple of hours. So much so that I was ready to sleep with you that first night. Then you passed out on me,” she explained. “But I knew something too John. I really did.”

“Well I’m glad,” John responded.  “That whole first day after you left I had this song stuck in my head all day. It was an old Billy Joel song called The Longest Time. My whole life I’ve loved that song. It’s about a guy who has waited forever to feel something powerful for another person. Even as a kid I used to listen to the song and wonder if it was ever gonna happen to me. It never did, I never got to experience what he was talking about in that song. Until now that is.”

She pulled the car over to the side of the road, and then softy began to cry. Unbuckling her seat belt she reached over and pulled John into her arms and they kissed. They sat like that for some time as it slowly began to rain.

They stayed up all night together talking and laughing and holding each other, and John could feel the bond between them growing considerably stronger. He knew that there was a very chemical component to falling in love, and tried to strike a balance between enjoying the feeling and holding on to a realistic view of where they were going. He had always been cautious with the idea of “soul mates” and an overly romanticized version of love, but what he felt for Stephanie was much stronger than anything he had ever experienced.

He thought it was probably a good idea to see Dr. Paul this week and talk some of this over. He was especially interested in hearing his opinion on the approach he was taking with Kim, and the possible ethical implication of modeling a nuclear family for her. He wanted to get back into a familiar routine with all of his patients, but suddenly realized he was without any viable means of transportation.

After talking with his new friend Mildred at Dr. Paul’s office, he set up an appointment for that evening after he was through seeing his own patients. He decided he would rely on Chicago’s cab drivers to get around for the next few days, and ordered one to pick him up in an hour. He knew it would take him a little more time to get ready this morning attending to his various injuries.

It felt good to be back at work, and he found that the worry and concern his patients had felt for him when he was hurt strengthened the bonds he had with them considrably. In between sessions he thought of something one of his favorite therapists Heinz Kohut said about narcissism. In an effort to explain narcissism he used the metaphors of an agonizing toothache and being in love. When a person has the agonizing toothache they are unable to focus on anything or anyone besides their own problem. He hypothesized that that was how a narcissist saw the world.

Conversely he talked about seeing the world like a person in love sees it. The person in this case is so significantly affected by being in love that they are unable to examine the world with any kind of critical eye.. Now that he was personally experiencing being in love, he was beginning to understand what Kohut meant.

On a deeper level he thought about a conversation he had with Dr. Paul about how feeling a deep sense of love for someone affected a person’s larger sense of empathy for other people. John had always suspected that Dr. Paul’s sense of empathy began when he had found such an intense sense of love in his marriage. When his wife died this sense of empathy seemed to grow, and although a kind of sadness enveloped him when it happened, he seemed to be honoring her memory with a much deeper sense of love and compassion for his fellow human beings.

John felt much more in the moment the entire day in therapy, and for the first time felt a shift in the way he conducted himself professionally. Although he knew he was a competent therapist, a part of him always listened to people’s stories with a bit of a selfish ear. Much of what he heard in therapy eventually became material for the books that he wrote, and although he always took great pains to protect people’s privacy, he was beginning to see how this may have detracted from his effectiveness as a therapist.

He had always wondered why Dr. Paul had never published anything as a therapist, and had even mocked him at times for his relative anonymity. Now he was starting to understand. For Dr. Paul his patients were his novels, and seeing people make changes in their lives was more than enough to gratify him.

John’s last patient of the day was a middle-aged woman who had lost her husband the previous year He did very little traditional therapy with her, and was mostly a voice of support and empathy when she was feeling down. She had been married to her husband since she was 17, and had talked often about how she would never experience anything like the love she felt for him again. As the session came to a close, John decided he needed to talk about with her.

“You know Cindy, there’s something I want to say to you,” John said as he leaned forward. “We’ve sat together all these months and I’ve tried to convince you that it was possible you will find love again and that you can and will have all kinds of new experiences. But you know what, I’m not sure I was doing my job, which is in a large part to make you feel understood. I think I get what you were saying all these months. Daryl was your life, and all of your love was invested in him. I’m sorry if I haven’t fully grasped what you were trying to tell me, but recent events in my life have I hope made me a better listener.”

As John finished his speech, Cindy came over and patted his hand. “I appreciate you saying that doctor. You’ve been a fine therapist and I’ve grown rather fond of you over this time we’ve known each other. You’ve been the one person in my life I felt I could truly talk to about Daryl, and it’s meant more to me than you know. So as your friend, I hope you don’t mind me saying something to you.

“What is it?” John asked with great curiosity.

“If I didn’t know better,” she replied with a big smile “I would think that somebody was in love.”

Damn, John thought to himself as she slowly ambled out of the room. Was he that obvious?

In the cab over to Dr. Paul’s office, John felt quite a bit more worn out than usual, and figured it was in part because it was his first day back after his wreck. There was more to it than that however, and he wanted to think about why it was he felt unusually drained this evening after spending so many years working as a therapist.

He thought about all of this in terms of empathy. He had always kept enough of a distance from people that he rarely took his work home with him. He had always had very powerful reactions to people in pain, even to the point of it causing him physical discomfort, but he had always numbed these feelings with his writing, drinking, or some other distraction.

Now he felt like he had in a sense opened up Pandora’s box. He was wondering if perhaps by letting someone get so close to him, he had opened up a piece of himself that had been sealed shut for most of his life. He knew he was very tired, and wanted to think about how this feeling might affect him over a longer period of time than one day’s worth of work.

Arriving at Dr. Paul’s office, he chatted with Mildred for a few minutes as he waited for the good doctor to call for him. He wanted to discuss how he was going to compensate him for his time, and thought about what exactly would be fair. All of the boundaries in his life were getting a little blurry right now.

“Come on in John,” Dr. Paul said with more professionalism than usual as John hobbled slowly into his office.

“Before we get started here John, I want to throw all my cards on the table,” Dr. Paul said seriously. “I am getting a little older now, and after a long day of therapy I’m pretty goddamned worn out. Normally I would go get a drink right now. I want to help you with whatever you need, but you need to know that in some ways, it is very hard for me to hear about someone finding love for the first time. It’s always been bittersweet for me to see people in love, as it reminds me of a time and a place where, for one season of my life I got a chance to glimpse something that very few people get to see. I guess what I’m saying is that for all of the shit I give you, I’m not immune to having a bad day sometimes myself.”

“Are you trying to tell me that the great doctor actually has moments of vulnerability?” John said with a smile. “Well welcome to the human race. Jesus are we switching roles here tonight? Or maybe you are modeling for me that sometimes strength is weakness, and weakness is strength. Whatever you’re saying I understand what you mean about being worn out. I haven’t been as worn out after a day of doing therapy since I was a grad student. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to do this for 30 years for a broken down old bastard like you.”

Dr. Paul let out an appreciative laugh at John’s speech as he got out of his seat and poured himself a drink from the secret stash in his cupboard.

“Jesus, the student has become the teacher. I never thought I’d see the day,” Dr. Paul chuckled back.

“Haha, well I’m glad I could finally absorb some of these lessons,” John laughed in response. “I remember one of the first things you ever said to me was that one of the most powerful things you can do for someone is to let them teach you something. Maybe after all these years you’re letting me do that. I really don’t give a shit if you want to call what we’re doing here therapy or consultation or a fireside chat. Frankly after a day like today I am content just to shoot the shit a little. Now are you going to be stingy with that Scotch or am I going to have to watch you drink by yourself?”

Dr. Paul poured John 2 fingers of Glenlivet and handed it to him with a sigh. He had never seen his old teacher look so tired, and he wondered if there was perhaps more going on with him than he was letting on. Frankly John was not particularly looking forward to being a patient this evening, and was quite entertained when Dr. Paul began regaling him with stories about his time in the Peace Corps and a number of other adventures from when he was as younger man.

They stayed up talking until well into the evening, and when John finally left, he was quite happy to have shared such a pleasant evening with his old teacher as a friend. He had gotten plenty of advice, consultation, and even scolding from him over the years, but surprisingly it was Dr. Paul tonight who had just seemed to need a friend to listen. As John stepped into the crisp February night, he felt something else however, and the whole cab ride home couldn’t shake the feeling that Dr. Paul was in some kind of pain.

John went to Stephanie’s house for the first time that night, and was thoroughly impressed ny her collection of books, movies, and antiques. Although he certainly felt a powerful bond with her, he was also curious about the little things that made her tick. Although he wasn’t the type to rummage through someone’s cupboards, he made a note to carefully observe the way she organized her life. He found her fascinating.

He told her about his concerns regarding Dr. Paul, and she confessed that she had also felt something significant when she had spoken to him in the hospital when they had first talked while waiting for John.. Hearing this, John thought about what would be the best way to proceed. He thought that if there was something important wrong with him, Dr. Paul would share the news, but on the other hand he wasn’t sure. Paul was a private man, who had traditionally liked to carry his own crosses alone.

John thought about how Paul had told him he was like a son to him when he was in the hospital, and at the time John had an immediate reaction that there was perhaps something more important behind this comment. Was Dr. Paul preparing for something? The comment had an air of finality to it that had both troubled as well as comforted him.

John mulled this over, and decided that he couldn’t just let it go. He remembered what it felt like to be laying in a hospital bed by himself feeling totally helpless and unsure if anyone even cared. He knew Dr. Paul was not the kind of man to ask for help, but also knew that sometimes you have to be forceful with the people you love when they are trying to push you away. He loved Dr. Paul, and decided that he was going to find out what was going on with him. As he called to arrange a cab out to Dr. Paul’s home, an old quote from Lao-Tzu popped into his head. “To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.” John felt like for the first time in his life, he was beginning to channel his courage.

It was a long way out to Paul’s suburban home, which was nestled in the town of Evanston which was a sort of liberal enclave along Lake Michigan just north of the city of Chicago. As a student John attended Group Psychotherapy seminars out on Paul’s sprawling, unmowed backyard, and he had always been fascinated by his home and in particular the crazy antiques and mementos that adorned the walls in his highly unusual house. He knew Paul would be home today, as for years he had taken Fridays off to sit and drink his wine and listen to his music as he drifted down his own personal memory lane.

As the cab pulled up John saw there was a strange car parked in the driveway, which was unusual because Dr. Paul almost never had company. He thought about something Dr. Paul had said about not being immune to having a bad day, and was starting to put some of the pieces together. Something was wrong with his health, and John strongly suspected this car in the driveway might be directly related to this.

His suspicions were confirmed when he let himself in and found Paul lying in bed in his pajamas chatting with a nurse and drinking some kind of tea. He seemed quite surprised to see him, and John knew he was in for a lecture on privacy at some point before the day was through. Still, this man had done a tremendous amount for him, and he could take a little abuse if it meant getting closer to the truth.

As the nurse packed up to leave, John felt a pillow hit the side of his head, and realized he had just been struck by some kind of flying object. It seemed the good doctor was feeling better.

“You nosy little shit,” Dr. Paul said with a smirk. “I would ask what the hell you are doing here, but I guess I have a pretty good idea already. You figured out I was sick, didn’t you? I sure as hell hope Mildred didn’t tell you. She’s hated you as long as I’ve known you up until the last month or so.”

“No Paul, it wasn’t Mildred,” John replied with a laugh. “It was just something I felt last night very strongly, and I wanted to follow through on that feeling. You taught me well you sneaky son of a bitch.”

“Maybe I’ve taught you too well John,” Dr. Paul said with a sigh. “Your powers are now intruding directly on my right to die in peace, and I don’t goddamn like it too much.”

“Die?” John asked, trying to hide his alarm. “Who said anything about dying. Enough with the bullshit already. I’m sure as shit not going to let you go to the grave without me hounding you every step of the way. I love you, you old bastard, and if there’s something going on with you than I want to know everything. I reject your right to privacy. You’ve meant too much to me in my life and I want to know what I can do to help, and I’m not taking fucking no for an answer,” John said with more force than he intended.

“Jesus John, you have become a force of nature these days,” Paul said with a laugh. “Alright John alright, I guess a big part of me wanted to tell you anyway. I have cancer, and it’s in my liver, and the doctors are not quite sure how much longer I’ve got. I keep going to work because it’s all I’ve ever known in my life. And you John, you will I hope be my proudest achievement kiddo. Now sit down and just shut up for a while.”

That night John needed a little cheering up, and he made a reservation at one of his favorite places in the city called Sabatinos, which was an old world little Italian place tucked away in a strange part of the city. Although he felt like he had known Stephanie his entire life, it was in a sense their first official “date”, and he was proud to be in the company of such an amazing and beautiful woman.

When she picked him up wearing a Black dress and with her hair recently styled, he nearly lost his breath. He had always remembered an old TV show from his youth that talked about love as being struck by the “thunderbolt.” At the time John thought it was sappy and made up, but now he was beginning to see what those writers were talking about. Everytime he saw her he discovered something new about the way she looked.

As they sat down, Stephanie grabbed John’s hand, and told him she was sorry about Dr. Paul. He was getting used to her powers of perception, but nonetheless amazed at how psychically attuned they were becoming. John thought about how he might have handled hearing this news just a few short weeks before, and reminded himself how lucky he was to be able to share this part of his life with someone. He was learning that one of the most comforting parts of intimacy came from no longer having to go down these roads alone.

He told Stephanie about Dr. Paul’s liver cancer, and everything he had told John about his prognosis and what he could expect in the coming months. Having lost her own mother to cancer at a young age, Stephanie was quite familiar with the process, and assured John that she would help him take care of his old friend in whatever way she could.

After dinner they made their way over to the piano bar at the front of the room, where the patrons could sit right at the piano and sing along with the songs with all of the other patrons as well as the singer. Having spent several years working with elderly patients, John had developed an affinity for older songs, and they sat for quite some time singing along with all of the music from Sinatra and Tony Bennett and all of the other old standards. When the singer started with his version of Etta James’ song At Last, John asked Stephanie to dance. Although he was hobbled and in pain, the song summed up everything he felt about the recent events in his life, and for once he had the perfect person to share it with.

Later that night they again went back to Stephanie’s place, and she surprised John by bringing out an old record player and playing some of his favorite songs from each decade. They continued to dance, and it felt good for John to start to move again and stretch his muscles out a little bit. He was in physical therapy now, and each day he felt like he was getting some of his strength back as well as some of his flexibility. He vowed he would never take these things for granted again.

“And now, because you have been such a wonderful date and danced with me all night. I have a surprise for you John,” Stephanie said with a smile, “For the final song of the night, I present to you, the first 45 I ever bought. Please enjoy.”

As the record came on, John burst into a huge smile and laughed appreciatively. It was Billy Joel’s The Longest Time, and he was not at all surprised that it was the first record she had ever purchased. More and more it felt like they had been waiting for each other their whole lives.

That night they made love for hours, hardly even stopping to talk as they had done on previous occasions when they had been together. It was the most intensely passionate night of John’s life, and he felt himself falling deeper and deeper in love with this woman everytime they were together. This was the last thought he remembered as they finally fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

That night John had a very powerful dream. He was struggling to catch a train, and, although he was quite sure he would never make it, he ran to catch up to it anyway. Just as the train was pulling off, Dr. Paul appeared and made arrangements for John to get aboard. They road together for quite a while talking and laughing, and then Dr. Paul said he had to be leaving, but that he would be happy to ride with John anytime.

As the train continued on John remembered feeling very alone, and stopping at the bar car to ease his pain with all of the other single men. He continued to drink, and got drunker and drunker as the train began to careen out of control. John became alarmed, and frantically pushed the button to get off at the next stop, but it was to no avail. Then suddenly the trained veered off into the street, and came screeching to a halt in front of his grandparent’s old home. As John rushed to get off the train he saw Stephanie and Kim waving at him from a front porch swing. He woke up with a start, sweating profusely and with his heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

The last time John had experienced a dream like this, his mother had called him the next morning and told him his father had died during the night. It was the most haunting memory of his life, and since that time John had always paid very close attention to the content of his dreams.

John sat up in bed and thought about how he should proceed, and realized that, although the dream certainly had some potentially foreboding themes about Dr. Paul, that there was also a great deal more content to think about.

Taken at its face, the dream could perhaps be interpreted that Dr. Paul had traveled a long way with John on his journey, but that now he would have to take personal responsibility for his life and find his own way. On the other hand there was indication that Dr. Paul’s influence would always be there, as he assured John in the dream he would be willing to travel with him anytime. Clearly there was a warning against drinking as a kind of self-sabotage in the dream, and some kind of indication that Stephanie was a way “home” for him. Not just home though, his grandparent’s old home which he had dreamt about so many times over the years. A lot of powerful images to think about here.

The confusing part of the dream was that Kim was with Stephanie as his subconscious created the idea of “home.” He had dreamed of his patients before, and knew that because the three of them had recently been out together as a kind of family, that this idea may have lingered in his psyche longer then he may have realized. Since the death of his father he was very reluctant to dismiss anything in a dream, and pondered for the rest of the day the specifics of what this all might mean.

Later in the day he got a call from Kim’s foster mother describing how Kim had been in a fight at the home, and how she was extremely concerned as it seemed highly out of character for her. She asked if John could speak with her about the incident, as she refused to tell her anything, which she described as quite frustrating.

As John had been making progress in his recuperation, he decided it was time he got back behind the wheel of a car. Despite being slightly traumatized by the idea of driving again, he also missed the freedom of being able to do what he needed to do without being at the mercy of Chicago’s equally terrifying cab drivers. He made arrangements to rent a car for the next week while he thought about what he was going to do about replacing the car that he had ruined.

On the way out to see Kim, John continued to think about what it was last night’s dream was trying to tell him. Was Kim a part of this home that could potentially save him? Although he was well-connected with a number of agencies in the city, he knew her situation was likely to be chaotic for years to come. There were a number of families who were truly committed to providing good homes to kids in trouble, but the reality was that there were almost always problems. It broke his heart to think about Kim becoming further damaged by this experience, and although he knew he was in a difficult situation regarding his therapeutic boundaries, he also knew he had already assumed a great deal of responsibility for her well-being.

As he drove up to the house, he noticed she wasn’t in front waiting for him, which he took as a bad sign. He wanted to get to the bottom of this incident that had occurred, and was truly hoping it wasn’t anything something serious enough to have to relocate her.

As he walked up to the door he was greeted by Mrs. Walker, who told him Kim had been in her room the entire day and was refusing to come out even for meals. John thanked her for telling him, and walked slowly up the stairs to see if he could get her to talk about what happened.

“Kim, it’s John, can you let me in?” John asked as he knocked quietly on the door. “I was hoping we could just chat for a minute, and we can even get out of here if you want to.”

“Come in John,” she said wearily. “I’m glad you’re here, I’ve had a rough couple of days since I saw you last. I know it’s a little weird to ask, but do you think I could have a hug from you?”

John quickly thought about his choice here, but decided that for this moment at least, his therapeutic dilemmas would just have to wait. This was a scared little girl who needed somebody she trusted to make her feel safe, and right now he was that person. He reached over and pulled her into a hug as she began to cry, softly at first and then into full-fledged sobbing. They sat like that for some time as Kim finally released so much of the pain she had been holding in for so long. Although it was incredibly painful for him to experience, he also instinctively knew that Kim had begun to heal.

After she stopped crying, Kim asked if they could go and get some ice-cream, which he happily obliged. On the way she told him that one of her younger foster brothers had tried to pull her shirt off as she was lying down, and then when she refused began yelling how it was not like she hadn’t done this before. John became very angry upon hearing this story, as the story of Kim’s privacy had clearly been betrayed, and there was a good chance it was by someone such as a foster parent who clearly should have known better. It was also tantamount to an attempted rape, and although Kim was able to fight off the younger boy, he knew from his professional experience that these things were unfortunately all too common in the foster system.

Driving home, John couldn’t shake the idea that he had to do something for Kim. He knew all the risks of getting overly involved in a case, and had many times observed the broken foster system at work, while having to turn a blind eye. This case felt different though, and he couldn’t get the idea out of his head that life was sending him a very large sign here, although he was still missing a strong feeling as to what he should actually do next. He called Stephanie and asked if she was willing to meet him for dinner that evening, as he felt that she was certainly connected to whatever it was he was supposed to figure out.

They met at a little out of the way place called Moody’s pub, which was a wonderful restaurant complete with fireplaces and quiet tables where people could sit and talk for hours. He had spent many nights here over the course of his time in Chicago, and even as an undergrad he would sit and discuss philosophy with his friends over pitchers of Sangria into the wee hours of the morning. The place had special memories for him.

As they found a place in the back next to the fireplace, John told Stephanie about everything that had happened, and she explained that she had also sensed something was wrong with Kim the last couple of days at school.  Although Stephanie was her art teacher and only saw her at certain points during the week, she also described feeling unusually attached to her and thinking often of what she could do to help save her.

“Let me ask you a question Stephanie,” John started in. “Were you ever a fan of The Twilight Zone? I have to confess I was practically an addict growing up, and even liked the new ones that they did later on. All day this particular episode has been stuck in my head. It was from the new series and it was called Little Boy Lost. It was about this woman who keeps running into this little boy that she really hits it off with. She is at a major crossroads in her life, and we later find out that this little boy represented the child she would have had if she hadn’t decided to uproot her life and leave everyone, including her fiancé, behind. I haven’t been able to get this episode out of my head today, and I think, sitting here with you, I finally figured out why. I think Kim is my little girl lost, and if I don’t save her now, than she is doomed. It’s not a hunch or a guess but an extremely powerful feeling with an absolute certainty to it.”

“I haven’t told you why I became a teacher John,” she said as she reached over and grabbed his hand. “I’m guessing you’ve read The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was Kim’s age for the first time, and in a strange way it saved my life. You see just like Kim, someone I trusted betrayed me sexually when I was too young to know any better. I was so angry for so long until I found that book, and suddenly I felt like I had found something that described how I felt about the world. I kept that book with me for years, and as I got older, I discovered something about it I hadn’t thought about before. You know how Holden says the only thing he ever wants to be is the Catcher in the Rye? How he wants to save kids before they go over the edge? That’s why I got into teaching. I wanted to catch the kids if I could before it’s too late for them. That’s why I’ve always worked in low-income schools. When I met Kim I had that feeling too, and couldn’t help but think there must be some reason the three of us were thrown together like this. I do know how I feel, and I know it may sound crazy, but I feel like we were all meant to be together. Does that scare you?” she asked quietly.

John was taken aback by her speech, but also felt like she has just said out loud something that had been crystallizing in his head the entire day. Although everything in his life seem to be happening quite fast right now, he also felt like he had been preparing for this for a lifetime. He got up and sat next to Stephanie and embraced her with all the love he had to give.

“Thank you so much for telling me all of that, and I’m so sorry that you were hurt when you were a little girl,” John said sadly. “From what I can gather you have channeled all of the horrible things that have happened to you into a wonderful kind of love and empathy and compassion, and I’m quite sure a whole lot of children have been deeply affected by having such an amazing teacher in their lives. As far as you and I go, none of this feels crazy to me. It feels like I’ve known you my whole life, and I love you. I do,”

“I love you too,” she said with conviction. “And I will make you a promise right now. I will help you take care of Kim in any way I can, forever. I don’t know exactly how we will go about this right this second, but I promise you I will always be there.”