A Shining Affliction

by Annie G. Rogers

  The last time I meet with Rachael, it is not at the Psychoanalytic Institute but a new office building in another part of Chicago, where she is consulting that day. I resent this breaking of tradition—the marble stairs unclimbed, the little note above the buzzer I would not read again, Rachael not sitting at her desk, not opening the bottom drawer for slippers, the piece of hard candy she would not offer to me today.

  We meet in a conference room, at a long table of mostly empty chairs. I am leaving her in the wrong place and I resent it.

  I take my notes and tapes from my briefcase. Her eyes catch the light. She wants to hear all the details of my work. We listen to parts of the tapes. She asks me to read my summary notes and the sketch of my own interpretations. She wants to read them herself. It is as if nothing has changed; I am not seeing her for the last time at all. But I am not so practiced at self-deception that I believe this. I watch her reading. The light glints off the frames of her bifocals. She seems very old today. I realize that she is two or even three generations older than I.

  Rachael looks up from her reading and asks, “When Ben says to Tea Bags, ‘Will I ever get to visit you, Tea Bags?’, I wonder if he is also asking if he will ever get to visit you again.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I must have missed that question in his play,” I reply.

  Rachael nods. “I don’t know if he was asking you that, but he may have been.”

  I tell her that I plan to return to visit each of the children in the coming year. “I thought I’d say something to each one of them in the last session.”

  Rachael blinks and looks startled. “Continuity of interest and caring are not harmful to disturbed children,” she says gently, gathering force, “but to offer, much less promise, future visits during the termination phase of treatment—that might be harmful.” This is not what I want to hear. I look down at my fingers.

  When I look up again, I see that Rachael is studying me. “Ah, Annie, you have come to love these children?”

  “Yes, very much,” I say, wondering how in the world this could be a problem.

  “Of course you have,” she says gently. “And you want to see them again—because you’ll miss them—you, for yourself?”

  “Yes,” I admit, wondering if this is something I should not want.

  She persists, “Can you imagine that to promise you will visit would allow the children to unrealistically cling to this relationship? Can you imagine that that would rob Ben of the real sadness, anger, and meaningful accomplishment of a clear ending?”

  “I can imagine that, yes, but—”

  “Annie, promises of visits are not for the child; they are for the therapist, if they are made at this time.”

  I myself did not know what would benefit Ben. But I wanted very badly to continue seeing him and the other children. So I treaded carefully answering her.

  “Isn’t it true that a crucial piece of the work of saying goodbye is a rehearsal of loss, but the loss has to be bearable?” I ask.

  “Yes, and you have already begun the work of emotionally saying goodbye. There are other ways to make a loss bearable. Think about it, Annie. What emerged as significant to Ben in this session was the idea of remembering, despite the loss of contact with you. This is implied in the phrases “Don’t forget” and “I’ll miss you,” as well as his fantasy that you know the person he will see in the fall.”

  I nod, listening.

  “It is too difficult, just now, for Ben to anticipate the future without you. He has to reject the idea of a substitute, because he doesn’t want to lose you. He breaks contact by running ahead of you after saying, “No. I don’t want anybody else.”

  “And, ideally, at some point, he will want to see someone else and not me?” I ask.

  “Yes, that is absolutely necessary.”

  “And if I see him too soon, or if he holds on to my promise of visiting, maybe that won’t happen?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, Annie,” Rachael admits. “He believes you know the person he will be seeing already. That illusion will work for him as an internal bridge from you to that new person.”

  I sit in silence, rare with Rachael. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to feel anything. I certainly don’t know what to say. My sense of grief will not allow me to remain insulated from my feelings, however. I feel my eyes swimming.

  “You could not have done the powerful work you’ve done with Ben, unless you loved him,” Rachael says.

  My tears brim over and I let them.

  “It is just plain hard to say goodbye, isn’t it?”

  I feel the largeness of grief, how grief will not let you hide from the awareness of time passing and death, or from life itself, going on in all its unexpected ways. I look out the window, a little window next to the long table, into a rectangle of light.

  How old she is. How fierce. How set in her ways. What authority she has. I don’t agree with her on this. But how much I will miss her! I say none of this to Rachael.

  “I will miss seeing you, too,” she says, placing in front of me a package wrapped in white tissue paper with a blue bow. I open it and find a blue-and-white porcelain mug with a little blue-and-white top. All around it, blue fish swim in the same motion, around and around.

  I brought nothing to give her. There is no promise of seeing her again. “I don’t have anything to give you,” I tell her.

  “Yes, you have. Over and over again, every time we’ve met, you’ve given me something.”

  I wonder if she is being sentimental now.

  “No,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “You are young, you are a new generation coming up. You will change this practice of ours and you will make a whole new world of it.” She pauses, smiles, almost to herself. “It isn’t often that the old get to learn from the young.”

  I go out into the afternoon sunlight. Maybe it isn’t so terrible leaving her here. Who am I kidding? Yes, it is terrible. I sense that I won’t ever see her again. And so, even as I am leaving, I continue to invent her, and her life within me goes on and on. Yes, I will change this practice. Yes, I feel her rising and billowing within me even as she lets me go from her.

  85

  The morning of my last session with Ben, I stand in the hallway talking to Mary Louise. I think of her now, that daily presence in my life and the lives of the children, and wonder if she has any idea of the power of her own presence—it is as unbroken as my own breathing to me, and one does not usually notice that one is breathing.

  I see Ben out of the corner of my eye. He waves and I wave back. When I finish my conversation with Mary Louise, I look down the hallway and he is still standing there, looking at us. He turns and goes into his classroom.

  Later, as we walk in silence down the hall to the playroom, Ben asks softly,

  “Is this our ‘last time’ time today?”

  “Yes. This is our last time and goodbye day,” I answer simply.

  “I want to do something special today,” he tells me.

  “Have you got something planned?” I wonder aloud.

  He shakes his head no.

  As we enter the playroom, he notices a stuffed rabbit on the toy shelves. He goes over and picks it up, then turns to me:

  “Oh boy, a bunny. Did you buy this for me?” he asks. I wonder what yearning this last meeting stirs up for Ben.

  “No, that rabbit has been here for quite a while, Ben,” I tell him.

  “I will play with him today,” he decides, and carries the rabbit and Tea Bags over to my desk.

  “Put Tea Bags on your hand,” he says.

  I do so, already recognizing Ben’s request (how many times has he said this?), and my gesture, as a memory in the making.

  Ben stands and looks at the puppet a long time, then cocks his head and smiles. What is he seeing?

  “Let’s do something special,” Ben says.

  “What would you like to do special with me today?” I ask.

  “Make me into a India
n clown,” he says seriously.

  I lift his face and draw in soft oil crayon—violet eyebrows, a red nose and cheeks, a violet dot on his chin. Ben also wants hearts on the backs of his hands and war-paint stripes on his arms. An Indian clown. Fierce and magical.

  I see that he is studying me as I draw.

  “Are you feeling sad, Ben, or just standing still and watching?”

  “Just standing still,” he says. “Paint me a smile too.”

  I paint on a big smile, as a final touch, and then I gaze at him.

  “I look pretty good, don’t I?” he asks. I could not have spoken it, the ethereal beauty of this real child before me.

  “Yes, you do, for a fact,” I tell him.

  Then he is off, gathering up Tea Bags and the rabbit, and in a few minutes we are walking across the field together in silence. The morning sun slants over the green and brown grass, throwing our shadows before us. Ben is quiet, subdued, walking beside me. Under the sharpening shadow of the minutes passing, we walk into our last session together.

  We reach a large sandbox at the far edge of the field. Ben puts the rabbit and Tea Bags on the side ledge and climbs in. Then he climbs back out.

  “We got to take off our shoes,” he announces, tugging off shoes and socks and letting them drop on the grass. He swings his feet over the ledge of the sandbox and watches me remove my shoes and socks. “Ooh, feel this sand on your feet, Annie! It’s cold, and then it’s hot!” he says, crossing from a shaded area of sand to an unshaded area.

  He reaches over the side and tosses the pink bunny into the sand, then begins to dig, throwing up the sand between his legs, and liberally scattering sand on me, not accidentally.

  I move out of the way and wait.

  Ben stops his digging and turns to me.

  “But I want to throw sand on you,” he complains.

  “You want to, but the sand will get in my eyes. You can throw sand at the side of the sandbox, Ben.”

  So he does, attempting to make “sand balls” from wet sand. He digs around in the sand and finds a stick, a cup, and an old fishing bobber. He throws them at the side of the sandbox, too. Each object clanks against the wood. Then he sits still, his back to me.

  “You are feeling mad because I am leaving today?” I ask slowly, wondering if his feelings can be put into words.

  When he turns, his chin quivers briefly. “I don’t want to,” he says.

  “You don’t want to feel mad, bear?”

  “I don’t want to be mad,” he says with determination. Now, under the sleeping shadow of this feeling, he moves in a new direction.

  His eyes rove over the sand and he gets up and moves away. He spots a long piece of string alongside the sandbox, climbs out and picks it up, climbs back in and picks up the broken bobber..

  “You could fish for me, like you usta!” he says, excited.

  I take my cue. “And the sandbox will be our lake?” I ask.

  Ben nods and squats down in the sand on the far edge of the sandbox. “Now fish for me! Throw out the line!” he shouts.

  I stand outside the sandbox and tie the bobber to the string, then toss it in a high arc over to Ben. He examines the bobber and grimaces.

  “No. It needs bait and a sinker!” he says in exasperation.

  I tell him a bobber is supposed to float and bob, not sink, then I tie some weeds on and send it out to him again.

  Ben snatches the “bait” off and gives me back an empty hook, laughing.

  We repeat this sequence several times, and each time I respond in mock frustration and disappointment, fuming about the fish I want to catch.

  Then Ben says, “Now let Tea Bags fish for me!”

  I set up Tea Bags to fish, but I have Tea Bags be a more aggressive fisherman.

  “There’s a nice big fish in there, and I’m gonna get him!” the puppet declares loudly.

  Ben giggles and squirms on the other side of the sandbox.

  Tea Bags throws out the line and, of course, Ben rapidly unbaits it. Just as quickly, I crawl across the sandbox with Tea Bags on my arm and wind the big yellow puppet around Ben, lifting him onto my lap and tickling him. “We got you! We got you!” I chant, while Ben convulses into laughter, delighted with this ending.

  Then we sit still in the sand, catching our breath. We are at the edge of a large field. What we know can’t be seen easily, can’t be spoken of carelessly. The big sunflowers off to our right nod in the wind.

  Abruptly, Ben points beyond them and says, “Let’s go back to those woods. I got something to show you.”

  He leads me to a place enclosed by fallen branches, with a small opening. He crawls inside and motions me in. I crawl in too and sit down beside him in a spacious, enclosed place where the sun falls through the branches, dappling the tall golden grasses. Here a child could sit, or lie down and dream. An idyllic spot, the kind of place I would have sought out myself as a child.

  We sit together in silence. I am caught by the way the grass moves in the breeze, so that every color within it is distinct just before it bows and blurs with the wind. I can almost touch these colors, these moments, humming away.

  I check my watch and tell Ben that our time is almost up and we need to head back.

  He leads me out of his special place, and we pick up our shoes and socks and the other toys at the sandbox. Ben hands them all to me.

  “Will you carry them so I can run barefoot?” he asks.

  I nod and he loads up my arms.

  I watch him dart and skim over the huge field, agile and fast. Then he sits in the grass and waits for me. As I walk toward him, I notice the gesture of his stillness. In the quiet recesses of consciousness, I wonder, does he hear music that plays over his earthbound body? It is not just the scope of the field and this tiny seated figure upon it that make me think this, but Ben himself, poised in that way, as if listening.

  I catch up to him and we walk the rest of the way in silence together. Near the door, he asks,

  “Will you take me tomorrow?”

  “No, this is our last time,” I tell him, and my voice cracks. I feel tears on my face.

  Ben looks up at me.

  “I feel very sad right now,” I say. “I’m going to miss you, bear. I am already missing you.”

  Abruptly he hugs me and I hug him back.

  He opens the door, brushing his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “And you are sad, too,” I state simply.

  He shakes his head no. “I don’t want to be sad,” he says, not so much a denial, I sense, as a gritty determination to savor some elusive joy with me.

  Inside, in the dim hallway, we sit down and put on our socks and shoes in silence. Then I walk Ben back to his classroom.

  At lunch that day, the children I have seen all year eat with me and give me the cards they’ve made to surprise me. Ben’s card is simple. A red heart with an I Love You message inside.

  He stands by me, dazed, quiet, in the clamor and rattle of the cafeteria. Other children and adults speak to him, but he is in a trance, caught within himself, over and over, the way grass in all its colors can be caught for a second before a breeze that is repeated and repeated.

  Outside on the play yard, I sit on a shady ledge and pat my lap. He comes and sits, first by me, leaning against me, then on my lap, saying nothing. He cries now, and again sits very still. He climbs down and stands a slight distance from me, smiles through his drying tears and waves.

  What I see in these moments can be felt in the details, yet there is more in Ben’s face than I can ever tell anyone.

  He takes his place on the ball field and I watch him play for the remainder of recess, a small brown-headed boy with dark eyes among other boys and girls.

  The loss of someone cherished and deeply loved is something every human being is confronted with sooner or later. But when an abandonment, a disastrous ending, imprints so much pain that life itself becomes a torment, as it had been for Ben, even as a baby, then the manner and
meaning of leaving becomes vital. Such a leaving can be the shattering repetition of trauma, an ongoing nightmare from which a child tries in vain to awaken. It can also be a healing experience, even if saying goodbye is extraordinarily painful.

  Almost from the beginning, Ben began the work of understanding his abandonment with me—in his fantasy play, he recreated his feelings of loss, rage and fear, and he replayed the scenes of his babyhood, discovering new feelings and new experiences. The process of therapy was incomplete by August a year later, and it was I, not Ben, who initiated this ending. It was not a fully resolved ending. At the end, Ben was still reacting with shock, and still reluctant to feel his anger and sadness.

  I think it might have helped Ben to know that I would see him again for a visit in the coming year. Knowing that. was coming back, at least to visit him, might have helped him to make a transition to working with a new therapist. But I did not trust myself more than I trusted Rachael, so I did not tell Ben that I would return.

  Yet I do not think this ending was traumatic for him. He was struggling with the loss still, but I did not become the bad deserting mama of his past, nor did he feel the need to become the bad little boy who caused my leaving. There were signs of potential healing. He could play with real joy even in our last session, even in the midst of his pain.

  Mary Louise told me that Ben had stared into space after he made the card with her the day before, incredulously repeating, “I love her.” So I knew that saying goodbye to me was not unbearable. “I love her” imprinted something new on the old story of abandonment, and it is this impression that marked our ending, and healed my loss of him as much as his loss of me.

  Within any story, some things artfully repeat: a baby bear is lost and rescued, his heart stitched up; baby bears are called out of a drainpipe and taken home; a mama bear is killed and leaves, and sometimes a mama bear returns. These repetitions are themes that come back to a center, the inner sanctum and sanctuary of a story, its undisturbed mystery. For Ben and for me, this sanctuary, this central place of undisturbed mystery, had become deeply disturbing, but in the course of our relationship we played together and made a new sanctuary within each of our stories—a place where love survives unbearable loss.