Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode # 73: That Somber Night of Halloween

 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 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 #73. That Somber Night of Halloween

 

Nickie always looked delirious and complained that she’d been constantly hearing the cold, weird sound of whistle in her head, especially when the last day of October came closer every year. So sadly, Nickie’s father happened to die from stroke on the night of Halloween a couple of years before Nickie came to my office. Throughout the year and a half of our weekly therapy sessions, she had never said her mind was clear or became pristine without any shade of darkness like before. The last day of our meeting, she handed me a piece of poem written by herself.  

 

 Grim Ghosts’ Nightout in October

by Nickie Thompson

 

Again, I hear this whistle tonight.

It cuts and hurts my heart and pushes me to sink in deep mire.

The sound resembles a clamor from the tomb full of fright.

I become enclosed by the noise in dire.

 

 

Even little trick-or-treaters’ costumes in the streets are no fun to me.

Rest assured, their door-to-door trips will soon be over.

Fancy prestidigitations of magicians at a local shopping mall feels like no more than a booster for the Halloween shopping spree.

Hate to see the grim ghosts in between the trees and clouds like a rover.

 

 

Where is the soul of my own father?

I find myself looking for his lost soul somewhere up there with the empyrean angels.

Though this earsplitting whistle keeps vexing me to smother,

I pretend to hear some happy shivaree or holy gospels.

 

 

They call me an infidel, but I don’t believe in God’s blessing.

I just wish to know why He took my father so suddenly

 and what’s with all this nerve-wrecking sound I hear that keeps

transgressing

I would make a Faustian deal with God to get an answer in my prayers so lonely.

 

 

 (*Picture Source: https://wallpaperaccess.com/halloween-1920x1080  &  https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/435986/capturing-the-sound-of-depression-in-the-human-voice)

 

Expressions

 

1.   pristine: in its original/ unspoiled condition

 

2.   to sink in deep mire: to be struggling in a hopeless situation

 

3.   in dire: causing great fear and worry

 

4.   rest assured (that ….): one can be sure/ certain/. Confident that…

 

5.   prestidigitation: magic tricks/ maneuvering by hands for entertainment

 

6.   to rover: wanderer

 

7.   empyrean: the highest heaven

 

8.   shivaree: a noisy mock serenade performed by a group of people to celebrate a marriage or mock an unpopular person

 

9.   Faustian: relating to or resembling Faust, a German astronomer and necromancer reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil

 

 

Time to play the latest Sunday Puzzle created by Will Shortz on NPR!

 I'm going to give you some categories in two words. You name something in each category starting with each initial in the category. Any answer that works is fine.

Example: Zoo Animals --> Zebra, Aardvark

 

1. Family Members

2. European Volcanoes

3. Road Signs

4. Seven Dwarfs

5. Circus Acts

6. Bakery Products

7. College Majors

 

*Picture Source: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/word-game-categories-11298035

Answer Keys

1.   father, mother

2.   Etna, Vesuvius

3.   railroad crossing, stop

4.   Sleepy, Dopey

5.   clown, acrobat

6.   buns, pie

7.   Chemistry, mechanical engineering

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #72. Gornick, the Photographer that Heals

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 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 #72. Gornick, the photographer that heals

 

Gornick had been my patient for a year before he became a photographer working for those with heartaches and hurt in their past. He was a war veteran from the Gulf War and suffering from PTSD, which made him end up meeting me through the weekly therapy session in my office. The first time he stepped into my office, Gornick looked painfully uptight as if he had still been in the war zone, teetering on the brink of killing another enemy or being killed by them. His uneasy eyes were telling me to embrace his past and today instead of trawling into his pain as a psychiatrist. I still remember the days of our weekly talks, by which I came to find a penumbra of true human kindness and affection in Gornick’s heart.

 

(*picture source: clipart)

 

Each time Gornick tried to recollect and describe the moments of confronting the opponents in the war, his cheeks were a bit twitching in his deep thoughts. I kept saying how much Americans would appreciate his sacrificial life in the war zone, but Gornick was mad at my praise and admirations. He said “Dr. J, I was dispatched to help the country and destroy the enemy. I ended up decimating not only the enemy, but all the innocent people living there as well. My fellow comrade and I would say that we were totally hexed from the start of this war to kill. I am fighting in that war zone every night in my dream.” Even though I had been there to ease Gornick’s deep-rooted pain, I was not trying to backpedal on my thoughts about his selfless contribution as a brave soldier in someone else’s country. At some point of our weekly therapy sessions, he started to show me some of his photos taken from the war. In those pictures were Gornick’s exhausted eyes vaguely shown through the sand blast. I saw a lonely soul filled with a lot of sorrow, remorse, and guilt in his eyes, but Gornick felt himself like some kind of daring manticore that prey upon every life in sight during the war.

 

 

(*picture source: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Manticore?file=Manticore.jpg)

By the time we were about to wrap up our year-long therapy sessions, Gornick said he’d be working for a center of post-war trauma as a photographer who helps those veterans heal their wounds inside. Leaving my office, Gornick handed me his camera and asked me to take a picture of us together. I received a picture of me and Gornick enclosed in a small envelope in about a week or two since we said goodbye. The picture showed me my praise and admirations toward Gornick were not so out of line. There was not an embittered soldier guy in the picture anymore. I only saw a man who had learned how to spread his love and care for others with similar sorrow as his own in life.

 

(*picture source: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/09/23/plans-for-bigger-defense-budget-get-boost-after-house-authorization-bill-vote/)  

Expressions

    1.   PTSD: Short for “Post-traumatic stress disorder”, which is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event or disaster

 

2.   uptight: anxious or angry in a tense and overly controlled way

 

3.   to be teetering on the brink/edge of something: To be very close to doing something or of having some imminent event happen, especially that which is bad or disastrous

 

4.   to trawl into something: to sift through something as part of a search or to thoroughly investigate something

 

5.   penumbra:  a shaded region surrounding the dark central portion of a sunspot

 

6.   to twitch: to move or cause to move with a slight trembling 

 

7.   to decimate: to kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.

 

8.   to hex somebody/or to put a hex on somebody: to cast a spell/ to bewitch/ to curse somebody

 

9.   to backpedal on something: to reverse one's previous action or opinion

 

10.   manticore: a mythical beast typically depicted as having the body of a lion, the face of a man, and the sting of a scorpion

Time to play the NPR Sunday Puzzle! Find the words that end in /loo/ sound in any spellings!

It was the last Sunday Word Puzzle with the host Lulu Garcia-Navaro. L She will be dearly missed. Every answer today is a word or name that ends in the syllable "loo" sound (in any spelling).

Ex. Big ruckus --> HULLABALOO

 

1. home for an Inuit

2. Poet Maya

3. Star Trek helmsman, originally played by George Takei

4. Member of a South African people

5. Studio that made I Love Lucy

6. Capital of Hawaii

7. Polynesian country about midway between Hawaii and Australia

8. Singer Harris in the Country Music Hall of Fame

9. Where Napoleon was defeated

10. NPR host who will be greatly missed

Lulu Garcia-Lavarro, the host of NPR Sunday Puzzle (Photo by Erin Schaff)

Answer Keys

1. Igloo

2. Angelou

3. Sulu

4. Zulu

5. Desilu

6. Honolulu

7. Tuvalu

8. Emmylou

9. Waterloo

10. Lulu

Time to play the latest NPR Sunday Puzzle!

Every answer today is a word or phrase in which the only consonants are D and T, repeated as often as necessary. All the other letters are vowels.

Example: "Same here" --> DITTO

1. Was on a weight-loss regimen

2. Surpassed in accomplishment

3. Cry of achievement

4. Behaved obsequiously

5. Checked the financial records of

6. Having an uneven number of appendages on the foot

7. Insolent manner

8. Obsolete

9. Removed from an article intended for publication

 

Answer Keys

1.   DIETED

2.   OUTDID

3.   I DID IT

4.   TOADIED

5.   AUDITED

6.   ODDTOED

7.   ATTITUDE

8.   OUTDATED

9.   EDITED OUT

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #71. Where could they find asylum?

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 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 #71. Where Could They Find Asylum?

 

I met José at this meditation club near my clinic. Although this place for meditation belonged to the nearby Buddhist temple, which was a very rare religious group in this town, most visitors to the quiet hall were atheists, someone with different religions, or those who were traumatized by painful incidents. I asked the monks who offer meditation classes there to lend me the cozy space in the back of their garden for the weekly therapy sessions with my patients. The monks smiled at my request and never seemed to scrimp on the opportunities to help people with indelible scars in their lives. I appreciated their generosity to let me and my patients get together in the garden.

 

The garden at the meditation club was not decorated with any of the flashy ornaments or even small tchotchkes from Asian Buddhist countries. It was just a small quiet place for worships and meditation without aureate sculptures, which must have looked far cry from fetching to most people. However, most of my patients came to this place as dejected souls whose ordeals and routs in life had reached a crescendo but left as someone who dared to venture out of their dark side and veer into a hopeful future. Among those people outside my therapy group was José who had drawn my attention like a butte aloof from others. Every Tuesday of my therapy meetings with patients, I happened to see this man sitting alone in the corner of the garden. He always looked emotionless and tired of this world.  When I gingerly approached this guy and asked if he had been coming to this club for a long time, he gave me a blank look and said “Why would that be important to you? Well, do not even think about inculcating your own small thoughts or opinions in me.”

 

 

It took me two full years to be his friend and come to learn about his heart-breaking experience as a national guard working in the border between Texas and Mexico. José told me about his grandparents who crossed the border to seek asylum in the U.S. They had done everything possible to raise their little ones by taking the most difficult jobs that were neglected or belittled by the legal U.S. citizens. These asylum-seekers’ successful stories had made more and more people come to the borderline for all those years, and José had become a national guard who must arrest trespassers from his own ancestral country and secure the border. Working as a national guard trooper, José saw a lot of little kids left unaccompanied, dying people who walked days and days without water to cross the border, and drug-traffickers who had nothing left to lose in their home country. The hardest thing for him was to face the massive migrant caravan whose eyes were filled with certainty for bright future in the land right across the border. Dealing with the illegal immigrants’ strong will to survive today and prosper tomorrow had been the most mind-boggling duty in José’s life, because he had to put every effort to stymie the plans of his own ethnic group from Mexico. He had to become a whole new person with no heart or mercy at all in the border between two nations.

 

 

When I asked José what he came to the meditation club for, he was quiet for a while and said “I don’t know….honestly, I want them to flee their puddle situation. They have no choice but to run away from poverty, violence, or persecution that’s plaguing their own land. But I can’t let them cross the border as an American national guard. I wanted to find some answer or solution to this dilemma that I am situated in. I come to this meditation club just to stay calm and sane even for a couple of hours a week.” Although José was no longer the national guard anymore, his mind was still full of pain, guilt, and frustration lingering around the border. He must have been the most toiling asylum-seeker in this meditation club.

 

Expressions

 

     1.   atheist: a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or god

 

2.   to scrimp on something: to be stingy in providing for….

 

3.   tchotchkes: a small object that is decorative rather than strictly functional; a trinket

 

4.   aureate: elaborate or highly ornamented

 

5.   fetching: attractive/ eye-catching

 

6.   a rout: a disorderly retreat of defeated troops

 

7.   to reach a crescendo: to come to the peak of a gradual increase : climax

 

8.   to veer: to change direction suddenly

 

9.   butte: an isolated with steep sides and a flat top

 

10.  to inculcate: to instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction

 

11.  to seek asylum: to flee their home in search of safety and formally applied for legal protection in another country. Because he or she cannot obtain protection in their home country, they seek it elsewhere

 

12.  migrant caravan: a large group of people moving by land to cross international border (e.g., the people who travel from Central America to the Mexico–United States border)

 

13.  to stymie: to prevent or hinder the progress of something /or efforts to do something