Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #52. The Way Erin Goes

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 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 a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

 

Episode 52. The Way Erin Goes

Erin said she was ready to leave. Leaving her shiny position of restaurateur, proud membership of a posh hotel fitness club, circle of socialites, and…her beloved children behind for good now. I could tell how fed up she was with all those years of mammonism, epicurism, and the picture-perfect smiles that she had to put on her face even when her business acumen and entrepreneurship were doubted and flogged by the press now and then. She thought she needed a change, which would feel like breathing in fresh air after years and years of staying cooped up in an enclosed room filled with stench. Her droopy eyes told me so. When I asked her what she meant she’d leave all that, she said “Divorce…with my life”.

 

I met Erin and her rich friends at the hotel gym back when I used to be engrossed in playing tennis and racquet ball with my fellow doctors. Since my friends and I were not much of a big fan of dramatic greetings or showing all the niceties of decorum, the la-di-da vibe of Erin’s circle of friends felt way too cringy and unbearably shallow to us. They always looked spiffy and relaxed without any concerns about life. However, I often sensed a hint of annoyance appearing between the eyes of Erin’s. It seemed to me that Erin was like a flocculant in the water filled with sediments of the decadent rich. Each time she put down her friends’ snobbish remarks, Erin was frowned upon by them. I heard one of them saying in low voice that Erin would be better to be placed in some other space she conceived and dreamed of. After our racquet ball session on Sunday mornings, Erin seemed to be hurrying out the court. I hadn’t got a chance to ask her where she was headed for so hastily. On her way out, she always looked the brightest like a little girl who’s giddy about finding lots of Christmas gifts under the tree.

 

A few years later, I found out she had been visiting nursing homes and assistant living facilities every Sunday with a bunch of goodie bags full of her restaurant’s signature oatmeal coconut cookies and ginger root jellies for the ailing seniors. Her goodie bags had nothing bad for health. Even the drinks were not cheap belly wash, but packs of wholesome beverage such as Asian Kombucha or organic burdock tea. She found the ultimate happiness in giving what she got to those ageing and ailing seniors. Her donations and the act of charity funding for those who scratched a living on the periphery had been silently done, because Erin was never interested in becoming a cause célèbre by the public for any reason.

 

As the pandemic started to sweep the whole world, the nursing homes had lost so many of their senior residents and come to the point of closing. To make matters worse, Erin was devastated to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, stage IV. That’s when she came to see me at my clinic, looking pale but somewhat determined to do something at the same time. She asked me if I could introduce her to an M.D. in Hawaii who would help her leave in peace. I was lost for words. Erin went on to say that she was perfectly happy and emotionally stable. Most of all, she told me she never rued the life she had lived. She wished to end her own life peacefully, looking out the window, savoring the balmy breeze and fluffy clouds in the sky. “Dr. J, I have seen people enjoying food and drinks at my restaurant all my life, and now it is my turn to go with gusto, isn’t it?.” She winked at me with a big smile. I felt bitter taste inside my mouth and dismayed at myself flipping through the contact pages in my head for some M.D. friends I have in Hawaii who could help Erin leave.

 

(*picture source: https://www.royalhawaiianmovers.com/8-words-you-need-to-know-move-to-hawaii/)

Expressions

 

    1.  restaurateur: a person who owns and manages a restaurant

 

    2.  mammonism: the greedy pursuit of riches

 

    3.  acumen: the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions, typically in a particular domain.

 

    4.  to be flogged: to be criticized

 

    5.  niceties: a fine detail or distinction, especially one regarded as intricate and fussy

 

    6.  decorum: etiquette/ behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety

 

    7.  flocculant: a substance which promotes the clumping of particles, especially one used in treating waste water.

 

    8.  to put down: to disapprove…/ to criticize ….

 

    9.  bellywash: soft drinks

 

    10.              to scratch a living on the periphery: earn only just enough money to live

 

    11.              cause célèbre: a controversial issue that attracts a great deal of public attention.

 

    12.              to rue …: to bitterly regret ….