Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode# 18. Was It for Real?

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi 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 a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode # 18. Was it for real?

Whenever I reminisce about my old days in high school, I always get a bit puzzled by this boy named George. He was a painfully quiet guy who moved into our town with his grandparents. Since we were living in a small boring cow town where everyone knew mere trifles of each household, a newcomer family would easily become a talk of the town. Still can hardly believe that no one in our school ever doubted if he was able to speak. Teachers never singled him out to answer any questions or participate in class activities. George was a total loner who would eat, mosey around, study, and walk home after school all by himself.

One afternoon, I wanted to tail him along the way to his house…or wherever he was heading after school. George seemed to be meandering around on the way to his destination. I said to myself ‘Is he aware of me following him all along? This shouldn’t be the shortcut to his house’ In about 20 minutes, he stopped for a moment in front of a shabby old house and turned the key to get inside. 

Hiding behind a huge maple tree, I was struggling to detect what was going on inside the house. There were a couple of people to be seen through the dirty windowpane. Must have been George’s grandpa, grandma, and George himself sitting around the small dining table in the dark room with a dim light from a couple of candles. I had no idea of what I saw back then, but now that I have become a psychiatrist, I’d say they were holding some kind of a séance. 

Through my squinted eyes came the blurred silhouette of George and his grandparents sitting around the table hand in hand. I tried to figure out what was happening with them inside that house, but it was way out of the range of my common sense or even wild imagination of my own. I rubbed my sore eyes that were too tired catching a glimpse of George and his grannies. When I looked back inside the house, I became frozen from head to toe. George was all by himself praying at the table. ‘Where have his grandpa and grandma gone all of a sudden?’ ‘Am I dreaming?’ I kept rubbing my eyes and blinking to take a closer look of George. Yes, he was all alone. It was such a short moment that I wasn’t able to realize or understand what I had seen in broad daylight. I was still hiding myself behind the tree, but George’s eyes and mine happened to meet as I was trying to wake up and get real. Then, I almost got to the point of being out cold for a second. It was not George’s face that turned to me and smirked. It was my long-lost brother who died of a car accident when he was only 9. What I experienced that day was so surreal but far too vivid to be denied.  The second wallop on that day.

Since the weird, creepy day, nobody had ever seen or heard about George. It still remains mysterious in my mind. Probably the boy named George made me decide to become a psychiatrist who would navigate through human mind and soul.  That boy could have been George or the ghost of my own brother visiting me to keep himself in my sad memory. Hard to expatiate. Hard to figure out… and always hard to revisit that day of my life.

Expressions

     1.   mere trifles: insignificant or unimportant matter

     2.  talk of the town: rumor or idle gossip

     3.  to single someone out: to choose/ select/ pick/ distinguish someone from others

     4.  to mosey: to move in a leisurely, relaxed way; saunter; move along; amber

     5.  to tail somebody: to secretly follow and watch someone

     6.  séance: a meeting where people try to communicate with the dead, often with the help of someone who claims to have special powers to do this

     7.  to be out cold: to faint or pass out

     8.  wallop: hit; blow; attack

     9.   to expatiate: to speak or write about something in great detail