Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary
Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves
traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures as a single
father who lost his 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 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 #77. The Eagle with the Eye of Horus
At some point in my life, I came to realize that I had to
do the right thing for the sake of keeping beauty and the milk of human
kindness in society or at least in my own community. Helping stragglers to
get back on track was some kind of a moral pillar that kept me grounded in
my personal chaotic life after I lost my beloved wife. Vera was the one that I
was quite lucky enough to meet as a mental anchor in those days when I was
determined to stop drifting along in my loneliness and start brewing the urge and
passion to become the good source of light and salt in this world.
Vera Orlov was a social worker that I regularly saw in my
office whenever I had weekly therapy sessions for teenagers struggling to stay
sober. She was there as an observer for a 16-year-old girl named Kristina who
was adopted from Russia. Kristina was adopted as the youngest daughter to a
middle-class parents. Her teacher, who had been in my weekend tennis socials, would
tell me about Kristina and her abusive parents. According to what I’d heard
about them, Kristina’s adoptive parents did not want to accept Kristina as
their precious child, but rather as a free-of-charge maid. Plus, she was the
source of extra money from the government for the adoptive family. Kristina would
doze off in class and quite often times came to school wearing a black shades
to hide her black eyes. When her teacher asked me to meet Kristina for
consultation outside of my office, I thought I finally could help someone
adjust to this confusing world. I saw fear, suspicion and distrust towards this
world in Kristina’s eyes. After several meetings with her, I was able to make out
what changed this young girl into someone who execrated her situations
and people in it.
Then, came Vera Orlov, the Russian-American social worker who
assisted me in this process of intervention to save Kristina from her adoptive
parents’ abuse and maltreat. Vera said she had been raised by her babushka
before she was adopted as a child by an American family. When her grandma was
no longer able to keep nurturing Vera in that poverty-stricken area in Russia,
she sent her apple of the eye to this abundant country. Vera’s future here in
this country was not even close to a rosy life. She was harassed by her step
brother, verbally abused by her adoptive parents, and even allured into the
dark side of illegal drugs in her teen years. After years and years of being
shuffled around from juvies and rehab facilities, Vera had an awakening
moment like a last-minute reprieve, that brought back her old memories
with her babushka back in Russia, which seemed like an evanesced phase
of her life. In Vera’s vague memories, her grandma was somewhat filiopietistic
kind of lady who was always seen to be worshipping her ancestors and praying
for their blessings. After each prayer, her grandma told Vera “Your last name
Orlov means ‘eagle’, Vera. You need to see this world from the highest place
with eagle’s eyes.”
Vera often said to me that she could not be in a position
to thoroughly extirpate domestic violence or child abuse, she still
wished to be one good part of saving those adopted kids from their day-to-day
nightmare caused by none other than their adoptive family. “Well, even if
Kristina would not trust us as her true friends at all or even see the people
in this country as her enemy, ….wouldn’t it be better to be wronged by
an enemy than by her own family? I have brought her to the parties and cultural
socials of Russian-American immigrants, and she seemed to have gradually opened
her mind and feeling comfortable in her second home country.” said Vera with a jaunty
grin and then, she spit three times over the shoulder and tapped on her own
head in such a Russian way. I laughed and jokingly said “Whoa.. now I can tell
you were raised by your superstitious or overly religious grandma, Vera.” Each
time I recollect the days I shared with Vera, I find myself smiling and feeling
so pleased that we had formed an allyship to help needy people in our
small ways. Just as her babushka said, Vera Orlov flew all the way to this
country like an eagle and eventually came to live with the eye of Horus
for the weak.
Expressions
1. milk
of human kindness: care and compassion for other people
2. to keep
someone grounded: to help someone to stay reasonable and in
control of their emotions, even when this is difficult
3. to
execrate …: to eradicate…
4. babushka:
Russian word meaning grandma/ old lady
5. juvie:
a
detention center or court for juvenile offenders
6. last-minute
reprieve: an official order that stops or delays the punishment,
especially by death, of a prisoner
7. to
evanesce: to disappear gradually
8. filiopietistic: of
or relating to an often excessive veneration of ancestors or tradition
9. to
extirpate: to detest/ hate/ abhor ….severely
10. to be wronged by:
to
be treated in an unfair or unacceptable way
11. jaunty: having or
expressing a lively, cheerful, and self-confident manner
12. to form an allyship: to
emphasize and build social justice, inclusion, and human rights by members of
an ingroup, to advance the interests of an oppressed or marginalized outgroup.
13. the eye of Horus: In
ancient Egypt, the eye of Horus was a symbol representing protection, health,
and restoration
