Dr.
Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and
exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug
overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During
those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various
walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to
their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the
ones through the formal encounter groups or
support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across
were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life,
being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left
him with some food for thoughts in life….or some fodder to justify his own mistakes with in the past.
Episode #1
This
mid-aged woman named Amanda looked frazzled
and sapped of energy when I first met her at St. James Cathedral in Chicago.
Her eyes were swollen and reddened. She must have cried a river before I
happened to sit right next to her. After some quiet time of prayers, she
started to talk to me. “Hi…I’m Amanda. Are you from Chicago? I’ve been living
here all my life. Guess I’ve seen you for all those years around this area, and
heard people calling you Dr. J. Well…. If you don’t mind and have some time,
I’d like to tell you about what I’ve been going through lately.” It didn’t come as surprise to me that I found
myself walking out of the Cathedral and heading to a nearby café with a
stranger for a talk over a cup of joe or
two. Yes, I love meeting and listening
to people that I come across in life.
Amanda
said his husband died five years ago. She still could not get used to the fact
that she had to eat, go see a movie, shop for home goods, pay bills, mow the
lawn, take out the trash, wash the car, walk their dogs, grumble over their
nasty neighborhood, sleep,…..and wake up all by herself. She said her life had
been completely shattered since the day her husband died. Recently, her church
friend set her up with a wonderful man, which was like a gift from God. Amanda
said the man was so gentle, thoughtful, and even physically attractive. She
fell in love with this neatnik that
was perfectly gorgeous both inside and out. The two hit it off from the
beginning, but Amanda said the guy could not give her the feelings of love that
her past hubby used to fill her life with. Each time she went out on a date
with this guy, her mind was filled with her husband who had been with her for
twenty years. She said she would never ever have someone special like her
husband in her life again. Since she did not ask me to give her any solution or
opinions of mine, I just kept silent but was all ears to her story.
I
did not give her any words of certainty about her rosy future with this new guy
in her life. It is because I myself am still reeling from the shock caused by
my wife’s untimely demise. Well… if Amanda wanted me to give in my two cents’
worth, I’d say, no one could be replaced by any other human beings. But that does
not mean she is not able to meet someone who can hold a special place in her
heart again. I just wanted to tell her to stay open-minded and follow her
heart. It doesn’t mean that she should be impervious to the sudden rush of
feelings of love for her husband in Heaven. Whenever her heart is full of her
husband, she could willingly welcome the moment of reconnecting with him
without feeling guilty or sad. That might be the way her husband would want his
wife to be living. Just be in the moment and live it up, and then some day, she
will say to herself ‘Tempus fugit!’ and
smile.
Amanda,
do not try to fill in the hole left by your husband. Leave that empty space in
your heart for all the time and memories you had shared with your husband. I
wonder what my friends out there would say or feel in Amanda’s situation.
Expressions
1.
support
group: Support groups for addiction or post traumatic pain allow
people to share their personal experiences. There are groups that can benefit
anyone with any type of addiction or trauma.
2. fodder: food
for thought or excuse/ inferior or readily available material used
to supply a heavy demand
3.
frazzled:
in
a state of extreme physical or nervous fatigue and agitation
4. a cup of joe: a
cup of coffee
5. neatnik: a
person who is compulsively neat
6. Tempus fugit!: Latin
phrase meaning ‘Time flies!’
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