Finding out that someone you loved and cared about is dead is painful enough. To find out that this person died over 11 months ago and I had no clue only adds to my sense of loss and vulnerability. I had no clue.
S and I started seeing Pat in August of 1998. It was a dark and bitter time in our relationship. Without going into gory details, suffice to say that Pat had plenty to address with us, regarding our relationship, as well as our parenting skills and individual mental health.
We saw Pat week after week after week, usually on a weekday evening. Sometimes we were his last clients for the evening. That allowed him to be a bit more relaxed about the length of our session. Many times, we would start the session talking about something other than "therapy." From those "warm-up minutes," I learned about Pat's love of nature, dogs, woodworking, bees, gardening, his wife and his daughters, his extended family in Wisconsin.
During sessions, I heard him speak about his own traumas growing up at the hands of nuns, a failed first marriage, working in mental health clinics, deciding to pursue a Ph.D, politics, working with kids who have ADHD and learning to deal with his own limitations.
Pat was kind of a gentle bear of a man. For most of the time that S and I saw him, he had either a mustache or a mustache and a beard. He was rather rotund; he could have played a perfect Santa Claus, including the twinkle in his eye. I remember us talking about our respective struggles with weight.
He was incredibly kind and gentle. He demonstrated manly, better yet, fatherly tenderness that spoke volumes to the little girl within me. He cried with S and me a couple of times, particularly when talking about children experiencing violence. He told us lots of insightful or instructive stories and theories and even shared a hypothesis or two on the "secrets" of the universe.
Pat drove a Ford Ranger that he loved. When it came time, S bought a Ford Ranger too. He shared a dozen or so pine seedlings with us that he had gotten from a friend. S planted them out in our diminishing pine "forest" while her grandma observed. He brought us a jar filled with honey from his bees. (Delicious!) We brought him cookies at Christmastime because he made no secret of his love for eating. He gave us a beautiful wooden "vase," complete with a snug-fitting top that he cut and turned on his lathe. It sits on our sidetable in the dining room where we can see it with every meal. S bought a beautiful gnarled piece of wood and gave it to him because she knew how much he loved wood.
Because he knew, as designers we love to design things, one night after a session, we spent quite a while strategizing how he could build a gate into his garden. He had a bunch of design constraints (all of which I can't remember) that only added to the fun and challenge of figuring out a workable and buildable solution. He told us about the ponds on his property and the fence to keep their dogs safe and spending time there with his wife.
All three of us enjoyed the outdoors so much, we joked and speculated on what people would think about having our therapy session outside on the clinic lawn. We held back our impulses and stayed inside.
S and I continued to see Pat for over six months after we bought the pied-a-terre here in Motown. That would have been October or November of 2003. I guess we did see him for over five years. Amazing.
We never had an official "last" session. Our lives felt more stable, less chaotic, our relationship more loving, less prone to poor boundaries and "magical" thinking. That fall of 2003, when a series of appointments was completed, I never scheduled more. I never really said "Good-bye" to Pat because there's always a next time, right? Before today, rarely has a week gone by that I don't think of him. And the same can be said regarding S and my relationship. We frequently reference "What would Pat say?" after a particularly difficult exchange or while struggling with a thorny issue. Usually, we can work it out, thanks to his good work with us.
It's nearly impossible to express just how sad I feel, now knowing that Pat is gone. He was such a source of love and care for me in this world. He sure didn't save it for a rainy day. He put it out there, hour after hour, week after week. He gave freely and willingly and lovingly. I suspect that there are many, many other people, clients of his who feel the same. The world ... my world ... feels poorer and drearier and a little less warm for Pat's not being with us here anymore. As a caring therapist, I have made him a part of me. I will always remember him and keep him close in my heart.
