jesus at 12

jesus at 12


i opened the door for him and his dad, introduced myself and shook the dad's hand, and offered my hand to him, as well...his dad, shyly, looking down, said "hi, i'm walt...this is my son, zane"..."hi walt and cain", i respond..."no", the boy says firmly, "my name is zane, not cain", and he grabs my hand and shakes it firmly...i am embarrassed and apologize and think to myself that i like this small boy, so assertive...so small for his age...i was told he was 12 years old, yet he looks, like, 8...wearing a big baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, a huge over-sized sweatshirt makes him almost disappear...and he wears boots, cowboy boots, like his dad...

i was pestered to see these folks, sort of...a colleague kept asking me to consult with them, assess their need for family counseling...and i kept resisting...me putting them into a stereotype of the dad new into his recovery process as an alcoholic...not my favorite cup of tea...kind of cynical, i am, about some folks in recovery...not proud of my cynicism, just aware and tired of seeing good intentions and lots of promises go awry...

"so", i wondered aloud, "would either of you like a cup of hot tea?", and walt says "no, thanks", but zane says "sure, i would like some", and i offer zane the many choices of tea from the basket...i smile at him...i do like this little guy...he grabs a cup and i pour the steaming water...he puts sugar into the brew and stirs...i even start liking zane's dad...i watch walt, he is smiling at his son, in a kind of quiet, proud way...

"well, welcome..." i say to them, "andrew said he thought it would be a good idea for you all to visit with me?" "yeah", walt says, "but i don't know if we need to...i have been seeing andrew for quite a few months and feel like i got myself straightened out...it has been hard, but, i'm better"...he continues to describe some of his journey, though without being very specific...i don't push...i don't need to hear his whole story, maybe don't want to...andrew does a great job and this consult is to see what this dad and son may need in the here and now...i look at zane...he is tense, i think...

"zane?", i ask, "what has this been like for you? sounds like you and your dad have been through a lot?" he has just gulped some tea and sits the cup down...he is silent...then the tears well up in his eyes...unabashedly, he weeps, cries out-loud, spills his heart...i am taken aback, he does not know me...yet, he is suddenly describing what the last four years have been like for him...without stopping his crying, he describes how, time and time again, he came home from school hoping to have supper, but finding, instead, his dad drunk and asleep in the big chair, having not done anything all day...he says he counted the beer cans on the floor surrounding his father..."i kept trying to wake him up to fix supper...but he wouldn't move, i couldn't wake him up! so, i would just heat something up in the microwave or i would cook for myself"...(what?! i think, this little boy has had to do this?) i look at walt, he has tears, too..."walt? have you heard zane's story before? is this true?" (i catch myself, what a stupid question, i think) "yes", walt says, "this is true"...zane grabs more tissue and says he is so tired..."have you ever had a chance to tell anyone this before, zane?", i ask. "no, just my dad"...it is silent in the room...i am a mix of sorrow for this child, mad at his dad, sorry for his dad...i imagine the times this happened, seeing the scenes, feeling the lonely desperation of this little, vulnerable child fending for himself...time and time again...

zane's mom died four years before...a fast striking cancer, she died a few months after the diagnosis...zane was 8, maybe the year he physically quit growing...then, a grand-dad died...then, walt lost the ranch and they moved to another, less profitable one...zane's best friend moved...walt found a new romance but then got jilted...alcohol became his deepest, bestest, most reliable friend...and zane...no one for him...his dad is a good guy...through blurry, foggy, beer-stained efforts, walt loved his son while walt died inside of all these losses...and zane was losing even more...his daddy, like he lost his mommy, his friend, his grand-dad, his home...his age...

walt tells how he couldn't, wouldn't stop drinking...how he did the chores drunk, how zane learned how to do all that work and more, how responsible zane is, how zane is building his own herd of cattle, chooses one each year for the county fair and grooms, trains and proudly shows his stock...how zane tried to be so well behaved to not worry his dad...how zane leaped from 8 to 18 to take care of his world, to make his daddy happy so he wouldn't need to drink anymore...on and on, zane, who looks like 8, acts like 18, goes on...until, one day walt got arrested and then he had to face his losses, his illness, his sedated grief...

treatment does work...when the treated one works...the pain does not go away, it becomes felt, maybe understood, not denied, not avoided, but felt...and purged of its poison so the wounds may heal...

and zane should be 8, then 9, then 10, then 11, then 12, never to be 18 until he is...i feel my daddyness, my yearning for this child who knows so much, too much...i see his daddy repent and falter, then repent again to gain strength to be the man and daddy he needs to be...how to face his losses? how to face himself, alone? how to make a world, out of scars and pain and callouses, a world that is good, that works, not perfectly or ideally, but works, with meaning and love and safty and health? how to do that? yes, how to do that?

zane is waiting.

this son, this zane, who has so much courage and fiestiness and wisdom beyond his years, astonished me that day...wisdom, and age, born of pain.

"...and when he was twelve years old...the boy jesus stayed behind...his parents did not know it...they sought him among their kinfolk and acquaintances...they did not find him...after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers and experts, listening...asking them questions...and all who heard him were amazed ...and when his parents saw him they were astonished..." (luke 2)

******

the howling of the soul

the howling of the soul...

...always, it seems, as the wyoming winter wind whips across the prairie, i am drawn to wonder about her...i wonder how she is...what she ended up doing...did she heal...enough?

i remember, one day in a session...she was so quiet, emotionally frozen...weeping softly...it seemed that any movement i did could startle her beyond repair...in her silence, i thought of a scripture story...a jesus story, one that today, eludes me as i am writing...something about gentle compassion, i am sure...something about the yearning and healing of a soul....

so, i quietly say, "i am going to move to my bookshelf...get my new testament and read you a story"...in whispering movements, i walk across the room and take my favorite, wrinkled paperback new testament and let the pages fall open to this now forgotten story...i remember reading to her...wanting her to just stay still and know...what? that she is more than the anguish she feels...that she is accepted just as she feels...that someone, maybe me, maybe jesus, maybe herself most of all, will accept her wounded, yearning soul to become alive again...

that is how she described herself, not alive, but dead...in her self...

and, now in this writing, right now, i suddenly remember the jesus story!!

the story that i was called to read to her! lazarus...the dead guy that jesus rose from the dead, that jesus cried about because, it seems, jesus was a good friend of lazarus, maybe even a cousin, i hear...and, the story goes, that when jesus heard about his friend dying, jesus wept...that's all...

just wept,

simple, painful, beautiful tears...

jesus wept...

"the shortest verse in the bible", we were taught in sunday school...

of course, as the scripture story goes, it does not end here, or there...that jesus broke the rules of life and death...that jesus went to the tomb, perhaps crying...sobbing...

jesus bellows, howling from his soul, his grief...

"lazarus, come here!!"

...and the folks around, family and friends, yelled back, "no! he stinketh! for he has been dead three days!"...and it did not matter...

the rules of death, and the rules of family and friends did not matter...

lazarus came forth, from the howling voice of a loving friend and cousin...

"unwrap him!" jesus yelled...for he was all wrapped up, as a mummy...

unable to freely move...breathe...live...

one deep winter night when she could not sleep, when, even in indiana where she lived, the wind blew fierce through the forests and across the farmlands...she wrote in her journal, "i can't sleep...all i can hear is the howling of the wind...and it feels like my soul...the howling of my soul..."

haunting, haunting...and that was near twenty years ago...

and the howling of the wind blows across this january land...bringing wonders and prayers for her and for all who know what it is like to die and come back again...

before i left indiana to come here to this prairie, she had renamed herself...yes, gave herself a new name...a new life from her tomb...she created a new family, new friends, new rules to live by...she called herself (and this is not her full new name, for her privacy and identity are preserved)

"free"...

yes, free...

and to her, i bow...

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

(January 4, 2009)

"Well I was born in a small town

And I live in a small town

Prob'ly die in a small town

Oh, those small communities"

(" Small Town" by John Mellencamp)

and the phone rings at 3:45 am...and i am startled, of course... shocked: my god, has someone died? what has happened? who is calling? am i even awake? dread, cold fear, tightening in my chest and stomach...thick, groggy, crazy thinking...

wait! my daughter, barely 15...just left not quite an hour ago...yeah, she drives at 15, school permit here in nebraska...rural rules...we live out in the boonies, 12 miles to school and she has a "speech meet" with other students in a town 4 hours away...they have to be at the meet by 8 am, so catch her local school bus at 3:30am and the school bus driver drives these students to that far away town...

"dr fitts?", i hear a voice on the phone..."this is officer brian...from the police department..." "what? yes?" i say...fearing..."well, i was just patroling around the high school after the students left to go to their meet and saw your daughter's car and she left the headlights on...i tried to reach in and turn the lights off, but the car is locked...wanted to let you know so you could come in if you wanted and turn them off before the battery died..."

oh my...relief! "officer, thank you...i thought something bad had happened...no problem...(i am laughing, goofy, giddy a bit) i will just let it be...i will be in later and jump it...thanks so much!"...

headlights...crisis of the night...small places where people bump into each other...the goods and bads of small town living...

so, i am driving a hundred miles from my home, in the beautiful sandhills of this land, enjoying the warm spring afternoon and i stop at a tiny village along highway 2...get a pop, maybe a piece of homemade pie at the cafe...i settle in at the counter and the waitress smiles and says "hi dr. fitts!" and i am taken back...oh my, i do recognize her...a client from several years ago...we laugh and she says she and her husband are doing well, along with a new baby! and i feel happy and amazed at this little gift...and the door opens and, honest, a delivery man walks in with supplies for the store and he says "hi royce!" and it is john, from another far away town, working on his saturday route, a client now, and that is the way it is...no pretense, just normal small town stuff...a hundred miles from home...

and i have friends in rhode island who laugh at how "everything is always compared to how small" their state is and i think of the vastness of this western prairie and make a silly joke to my self that this small town, this region that acts like a small town, is 14 times the size of rhode island! and it is still just a "small town"...spread across hundreds of miles...

and, another time, my old chevy van that i insisted on keeping, broke down in town at a restaurant and i left it overnight, deciding i would get it to the mechanic the next day...except he calls me a few hours later and says "hey doc, saw your van downtown and figured it had broken down again, so i just towed it in to the shop...wanted you to know"...

therapy is to be confidential, private...so it is common for clients to sometimes ask to see me in a different office, not in their particular town, but in one of my other offices in another town, even if that means a two hour drive...ok, good idea...and, one day, in my main office, i had just finished a session with a person from another town...she steps out into the waiting room and sees a person, also from even a different town (i had three separate offices then)...she stops and says, "are you...?" and the other person says "yes?" and then they remember that they are long lost friends from high school and hug and laugh and become life long best friends from that day on!

i can't even write most of the other stories because, well, it is about us! and we know each other and therapy is as private as can be...

and johnnie cougar mellencamp is so very right...

small is, not painless, beautiful...