Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to participate in a Facebook Live meeting with three other area authors. We each read from our books and talked a bit about our experiences as writers.
I read a section from my latest book, My View of the Couch. In the reading, I shared about Keesha, a young teenager I worked with early in my career at a residential treatment facility. She was big, loud, and aggressive. Keesha disliked me to the point that she stole a pair of scissors from the counseling office to stab me at bed check. I was saved from that fate by other girls who cared for me and exposed Keesha’s violent plan. My playbook with Keesha was all defense. Until one night everything changed for me. The section reads…
One evening, as I was charting the day’s interactions, I came across Keesha’s birth certificate in her chart. I will never know what drew me to take a closer look. I noticed that she was born at the same hospital and was delivered by the same obstetrician as my children. I looked at the tiny foot print stamped on the next page. Sitting there, I began to get in touch with the vulnerable little baby she had been, instead of the aggressive adolescent I saw daily. I began to think about my hopes for my children and wondered if her family had dreamed big dreams for Keesha. I reflected on the fact that we all come into this world as defenseless little babies and much of our trajectory is determined by the care we receive from those around us. Keesha did not choose the experiences that happened to her. She was simply coping the best way she could in her young life. My attitude toward her shifted. I was now able to move my approach from tolerance to compassion in the face of her aggression. I related to her from a place of softness rather than defense. I don’t know that she ever noticed this internal shift, but I knew it had happened. Soon after that, Keesha was returned by Child Protective Services to the abusive family from whom she had been removed.
(My View of the Couch. 2020)
I wonder about Keesha to this day. I wonder if my internal shift could have changed the dynamics of our counseling relationship had we been given more time. I wonder if her anger ever drained from her spirit or if it continues to be the protective armor she needed so desperately as a child. And I wonder if she ever had a child of her own with a tiny foot print on a piece of paper. And did she have big dreams for her child? Or did the very anger that protected her soul became a weapon to wound the soul of the tiny life she brought into this world? Most likely, I will never know.
Keesha lingered in the back of my mind for the rest of Saturday. Just dancing in my peripheral view. And the questions about who Keesha had become became steps in this dance of remembrance. And then, I did something I rarely do. I googled Keesha. Her unusual middle name verified that I had the right person. Stunned, I stared at my iPad screen. Keesha was dead. Her obituary reported she died a number of years ago at the age of forty. She had two children and a grandchild. I tried to glean as much information as I could from the obituary, hoping I could create an image of who the grown-up Keesha had become. All the while, the tears leaked down my cheeks. This grieving was for a child I had not seen in thirty five years. Yet, it was as though I had just lost her.
If you are not a therapist, this may seem like an odd reaction to a piece of old news. But my reaction makes sense to me. Every child. Every person. They are not a file, but a spirit I carry within me. Something will jog my memory and I will wonder how they are in that moment. I will reflect on their times of struggle and their times of overcoming. I may smile at something silly we shared together in a session. Or I will see clearly ways in which that person changed me. Like Keesha did. I carry the emotional connections to them within my heart and together they create a tapestry that has enriched my life beyond words. And sometimes, that means letting go decades after the door has closed.
Be well, my dear readers.
