Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #61: Judith

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 phis 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 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 # 61. Judith

I had always thought a police officer was supposed to be a role model regarding morals and ethics for laymen out there in the street. Quite luckily, I hadn’t gone through bitter moments of facing or dealing with thrawn or clueless cops most of my life until I got a speeding ticket from this traffic officer. Her name was Judith Parker. When I rolled down the window, she was standing there, slowly pulling down her shades to look at me and said “Mr. You know why I pulled you over. You were speeding here at 25 mph school zone.” I was dumbfounded at her words, because I knew that I was only 3 miles over the speed limit. Even before I tried to make any excuses, her eyes were telling me there was no such thing as machinating stories such as going to an emergency room for my family in accident or I was being late to my flight. Giving me the ticket, Judith said “Not a single person passed me without a ticket even for one mile over. No boondoggle allowed.”

 

After our ‘not-so-pleasant’ kind of encounter, Judith and I had happened to come across several times at my son’s school events, such as parent-teacher conference, talent show, parent-counselor meetings for kids’ college application, and so forth. The police officer, Judith, who gave me the ticket for my overspeed of 3 miles, was the mother of my son’s classmate’s. When I was hurrying to the auditorium where students’ talent show was taking place, I recognized her in the hallway, so did she. She said “Whoa…you’re speeding again! You’re not only a fast driver!” I was a little embarrassed by her awkward innuendo – which seemed more like a taunt - and greeted her back with a sardonic smile. She was willingly letting me sit by her seat without asking me if I wanted to. When her daughter was on the stage, impersonating Mariah Carey, I had to bite my lips and try hard to think about the saddest episode in my life just to hold the burst of laughing. Judith saw me trying not to laugh and said “Just laugh when you need to, Mr. J. Who could not crack up watching my girl imitating Mariah’s dolphin whistle like that?” I got instantly disarmed with sudden warm-and-fuzzies, laughing out loud. We kept our conversation going on during the talent show and even after the event. When the show was over and the kids were brought back home, Judith and I went out to her favorite taco place for dinner that night. She said “Well, a police officer who’s a single mom is always pinching pennies. I can’t invite you to a fancy eatery.” I liked her down-to-earth way of life and speaking, which erased the antipathy that I had held against her as a blunt police officer.

 

My days with Judith had not always been rosy and happy. Given the pecuniary strain she was going through, Judith was considering to move to a place where the cost of living was affordable. By that time, her ex-husband started to reach out to her, saying that he had been deeply regretting the way he treated her. He wanted to come around and reunite with Judith, and it seemed to me that Judith was still reeling from her separation from her ex-hubby. When I cautiously asked her what made them separate, she looked very hesitant to answer my question. I felt uncomfortable as well in the long stillness between us that was obnubilating our minds. Judith broke the silence by saying something that I could not understand. “You know how much I’m struggling to live this hardscrabble life with my daughter. I want her to do whatever she wants and be well educated in a private school, just unlike me. I was deprived of so many good things in life since my childhood…. and the reason my husband left me was…. Because I cheated on him. I happened to be too tight with my colleague officer, and my husband found it out. Now that my husband wants to forgive my mistake and come back to me, I …..maybe I need to…”  I wanted to finish her sentence, but didn’t. If I stole words from her mouth, she’d just say she was sorry and left me right away. 

 

 

Five years have passed, and I still do not perfectly understand Judith. I thought over and over again about what it is that Judith was so easily forgetting her own misconduct and coming back to her ex-husband.  ‘Did she go back to her husband because of her financial difficulty? Did she have no confidence at all to start a new life from scratch in a new place with her daughter and me? Otherwise, falling in love with someone is no more than an implausible moonshot plan in life?’  I wanted to give her a speeding ticket because she was way too fast coming and going out of our relationship. Judith was not making a role model police officer in my mind.

 

 

Expressions

    1.  thrawn: crooked/ twisted

 

    2.  boondoggle: work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value

 

    3.  innuendo: an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one

 

    4.  taunt: a remark made in order to anger, wound, or provoke someone

 

    5.  to crack up: to burst into laughter

 

    6.  dolphin whistle: the well-known high notes that American pop singer Mariah Carey hits in her songs

 

    7.  warm-and-fuzzies: a highly sentimental, reassuring, and comforting emotional response

 

    8.  to pinch pennies: to be extra careful about how much one spends

 

    9.  pecuniary strain: financial difficulty/hardships

 

    10.  to obnubilate: darken, dim, or cover with or as if with a cloud; obscure

 

    11.   hardscrabble: providing or yielding meagerly in return for much effort; demanding or unrewarding

 

12.  moonshot: If you refer to an idea or a plan as a moonshot, you mean it is on a scale that is so large it is almost impossible to achieve.