Should I Ask?
"There is no such thing as a dumb question."
That's what teachers, supervisors, and lecturers told me.
When no one in my work group posed a question, my boss added, "Don't be shy. There's no judgment. No one to stop you from asking anything."
A few giggles surfaced, reminding me of the ridicule and judgment that I risked.
So I kept my question to myself:
"Is there such a thing as a dumb answer?"
Lacrimosa
Dear God,
I pray to you in whispers
And tired, weary sighs
My days are empty echoes
Of restless, night time cries
But I think on how You do collect
Each tear spilt from my eye
You keep them in a vessel
Because for me, You chose to die
—————————————
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8
We Come in Threes
The present me, the young me, and the old me walked into a bar.
"What'll y'all have," the bartender asked us.
"I'll have what he's having," I said, referring to the older me. "If it's not too much trouble, um," I said tenuously, reading his nametag, "Sal."
"Then," old me said, "I'll take a gin-and-tonic."
"Since when?" I asked. I hate gin-and-tonics.
"Since my wife left me."
"I get married?"
"Was she hot?" asked the young me.
"Idiot!" the old me told him.
"I mean," I said, "y'know, tell me about her."
"Included the hotness," added the young me.
"Youth is wasted on the young," the old me said.
"Yea, well, success and affluence are wasted on the old and feeble."
"I may not have any money to show for myself," the old me challenged the young me, but c'mere and I'll show you feeble."
"Incarnations!" I intervened. "Settle down."
"Do you have an ID, young fellah?" Sal asked the young me.
"He can vouch for me," he said, referring to me. "I mean, he's me. If any of us meets the age, we all do. And if I drink now, it's all ancient history for them, right?"
"Nice try, Chief," the bartender told the young me.
"Whatcha having, old man?" he asked the old me.
"I'd like a gin and tonic," the old man reminded him.
"Me, too," I added.
"Me, too," repeated the young me.
"You can have a Shirley Temple if you'd like," Sal suggested.
"That's just not right," I told Sal.
"No," the old me said, "it might just be right."
"Fuck you, old me," the young me shouted.
"No, fuck you right back. You better take some inventory, punk. See what kind of mess your bad decisions are gonna make."
"Thing's ain't so bad," I interjected.
"You, too," he told me. "You've got some bad decisions coming, too. Look at me! Thanks a lot, asshole."
"Who's the asshole here?" I answered. "Things are fine with me now. I can't help it if you took some wrong turns and ended up like this."
"But you can!" he shouted.
"All I know is that for me," the young me said, "my take-home pay's enough to live the sweet life with a bitchin' ride and lots of pussy."
"Asshole!" the old me called him.
"Asshole!" I agreed. "Your bitchin' car's gonna need rings soon."
"Y'know, Sal," I said to the bartender, "when me and the young me and the old me walked into this bar..."
"Sounds like a joke," Sal said. "But the only joke is you."
"Me?" I said. "Look at these jokers."
"Yea, you. Do you really want to live in the past? Or fret what the future might be? Be yourself! Or you're the asshole."
Me, the young me, and the old me walked into this bar. But I walked out alone.
A Christmas Miracle
It was Christmas Eve in London, and the city was, as always, adorned with bright lights. The air was filled with the scent of mulled wine, and snowflakes gently settled on the cobbled streets. London glowed with warmth and coziness, despite the cold wind blowing in from the Thames.
Oliver wandered through the streets, watching people rushing home with gifts. He had always loved Christmas, but this year, something felt different. His heart was heavy with longing. All he could think about was Irene, his one true love, with whom he had parted ways a year ago.
Irene was a woman he could never forget. Her smile, her voice, her gaze—all of it lived on in his memory. But fate had separated them, and now Oliver didn’t know where she was or how she was doing.
That evening, he found himself on one of Covent Garden’s narrow streets, where his eyes fell on a small shop with a sign that read "Christmas Wonders." He had never noticed this place before, even though he had passed by many times. The shop looked mysterious and beckoned with its unusual charm.
Oliver stepped inside. The cozy atmosphere was palpable: soft lamplight, shelves filled with vintage ornaments and toys, and a faint scent of pine branches. Behind the counter stood an elderly woman with a warm smile.
“Welcome,” she said. “Are you looking for something special on this magical evening?”
Oliver glanced around, but nothing caught his attention quite like a small snow globe sitting on the display shelf. Inside the globe was a miniature scene of snowy London—streets filled with tiny figures of people. But what struck him most was something else: in the center of the scene stood two figures, a man and a woman, holding hands. They looked just like him and Irene.
“This globe grants one true Christmas wish,” the woman said, noticing his interest. “But the wish must come from the heart.”
Oliver smiled, thinking her words were just a fanciful story, but he bought the snow globe anyway. When he returned home, he placed it on the mantel and sat for a long time, staring at it. Thoughts of what he truly wanted swirled in his mind.
Finally, he picked up the globe, shook it, watching the snowflakes swirl inside, and quietly said, “I want to be with Irene. Forever.”
He didn’t believe it would work, but his wish was sincere. He recalled their moments together, the laughter, the long walks through London’s streets, and felt a deep longing for her.
The next morning, Oliver was awakened by a knock at the door. His heart raced—he wasn’t expecting anyone. He opened the door and froze. Standing there, covered in snow, was Irene, with the same soft and warm gaze he had always loved.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she said, smiling. “Something called me here, and I realized I can’t live without you anymore.”
Oliver embraced her, feeling his heart fill with the happiness he had longed for. At that moment, he understood: his wish had come true. A miracle had happened.
That Christmas became the most unforgettable one for Oliver. Now Irene was with him, and they could begin a new chapter of their life together.
Victoria Lunar
Kenin
There are good people.
My husband has Parkinson's. Every day of the week, regardless of the weather (excluding blizzards and hurricanes), he walks 5K. I walk with him on weekends but only when the temperature is below 55. I love our walks; the nature around us is beautiful. But for exercise? I prefer to be out of the heat and humidity.
He prefers the outdoors. He walks every day because exercise is the only thing all the Parkinson's neurologists agree slows the progression.
Slows. It is still progressing.
When we walk, we hold hands. Not only has that always been our normal, now it keeps the tremor in his right hand from affecting his walk. When he walks alone, he bounces a lacrosse ball. It helps with dexterity and distracts the tremor as well.
He is well-known in our town. People wave at him from their cars, sometimes stopping to say how inspiring he is. He has been hugged by strangers who see him in other locations and recognize him, "you're the guy with the ball!" More than one person has used him as an example to a child as someone with discipline and drive.
This morning, he was walking with his ball and it hit a rock, careening into a hole about four feet deep. The hole is covered by a board, but, obviously, there's enough space for a ball to fall through. Cars zipping by, he lay on the ground and stuck his arm through the hole. He couldn't reach it. I suspect at this point his tremor was a bit uncontrollable as well (he walks before he takes his medication because the side effect is his right leg twists inward making walking very uncomfortable). He gave up and continued walking home, sans ball.
Maybe three minutes later, the time it took to walk from one side of the high school to the other, a pick up truck pulled over and parked. A nicely dressed, clean cut man (my husband's description) got out and started walking toward my him.
Ball in hand.
Apparently, he's a cop in our town and sees my husband often; one of the many who waves back - my husband always waves when the police drive by. He saw what happened.
"How did you get it?" my husband asked.
"I moved the board and jumped in the hole."
Nice clothes and all.
My husband thanked him repeatedly and has told me I must remember his name: Kenin.
He was so moved as he told me the story. He kept sipping his water to calm himself. I was crying as soon as the pick up truck parked and the guy got out, figuring what was coming although I assumed he was gifting him a ball, not that he'd climbed in a hole to get my husband's.
For every person who makes me angry and sad because they are impatient and unkind with my husband, I must remember there are good people around, too.
Some thoughts about my mom and her mental illness:
My mom was a single mother. I was born in the 60’s, and while it appeared my mom was pretty self-sufficient, where I lived in the working-class-neighborhood of Brooklyn, it was considered a faux pas to give birth to a child out of wedlock. My mom knew this and she found a guy who was willing to be listed as the father on my birth certificate. I didn’t know this at the time, but my mom had been married two times before I was born. During her life she was married a total of nine times. Nope, that’s not a misprint. Nine times.
My mom was a consummate artist. She was also profoundly mentally ill. I am convinced of a truism of my mother’s artwork: her mental illness informed her art, and her art informed her mental illness. Knowing her as well as I did it makes sense that she used art as a distraction. It also makes sense that she was married nine times. As her internal world was so chaotic, I sense she was looking for outside stimuli to quell the madness she felt on the inside as well as receive some kind of validation that she was okay.
During the time my mom was a professional artist her work appeared in over 200 shows. She worked in various mediums (plaster, ceramics, sculpture, pottery, pen and ink, etc) but her best work was done in either oil or acrylic. Today, artists mount their work between two pieces of clear Lexan or Lucite. My mother’s work was mounted between two large pieces of glass, held together by large machine bolts/screws. Felt washers were used on either side of the bolt ,and in-between the pieces of glass. The pieces of glass came shipped to our apartment pre-drilled. My mom tried various methods to mount her work, but she was fond of threading the holes in the glass with climbing rope and using a fisherman’s knot connected to some bolts mounted on the ceiling. Not only was she a consummate artist, she prided herself on making sure her art was mounted in a way that could keep her work safe. People would come from across the globe to attend her shows and buy her work. I was proud of my mom and I never tired of people telling me that my mom was amazing.
As a kid I remember hoping that the constant adulation my mom received about her art would be sufficient to quell the near- constant distress she felt with her various mental health issues. As a kid I remember feeling powerless to help my mom. When my mother took her medication, she was at ease in the world: her world made sense, and there was a sense of order in the Universe. When my mom took her medication, I felt connected to her. When she kept to her medication schedule my friends weren’t scared of her. My mother was also trained as a mental health therapist. When she took her medication, she had amazing clinical insight. When she didn’t take her meds, the police were always there. I’m not sure exactly how many times I visited her in the hospital. The diagnosis was always the same:
– Paranoid Schizophrenia with depressed features
– Narcissistic Personality Disorder
– Borderline Personality Disorder
– Sociopathic personality Disturbance, or what is known today as Antisocial Personality Disorder
My grandmother was a social worker and my mom was a therapist. It’s not surprising that I was drawn to working in the mental health field. After reviewing my mom’s hospital records, I’m not sure that the last three mental health diagnoses were accurate, however, I am absolutely convinced she suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia. She had command hallucinations which convinced her I was the spawn of Satan and that the only way to save the world was to end my life. During her last hospital stay the entire team met with me and my grandparents and they disclosed my mother’s plans to end my life. There were enough clues along the way but nothing extreme enough happened which prompted the state or my grandparents to remove me from my mother’s care. I came to live with my grandparents but was extremely sad as I felt like I was abandoning my mom.
Have you seen A Beautiful Mind? It’s an amazing film that does a wonderful job of illustrating mental illness, specifically paranoid schizophrenia and delusional episodes. While I have never met John Nash nor do I know anyone who knows him, I can relate to how his wife felt living with someone who was profoundly mentally ill. Unlike John Nash, my mom was never compelled to create a room full of chaos. She kept most of her delusions in well over 600 scrapbooks. My mom was obsessed with numbers, colors, shapes and abstract information. If she saw the number 5 on TV, she would collect five objects that represented that number. If the numbers on TV were a certain color, she would collect pieces of paper in that color: the word ‘White’ would become part of her delusion, and she would collect a large number of objects that were white. As ‘White’ has five letters she would fixate on the number five. Much like someone with OCD engages in the compulsion to relieve the distress, my mom was compelled to focus on her delusions to feel safe. After I was sent to live with my grandparents, I inherited all of my mom’s scrapbooks.
I tried looking through them to see if I could gain any insight as to how my mom lived her life and navigated her world. After paging through many of the scrapbooks my grandmother sat beside me, placed her hand on mine and encouraged me to stop. “Todd, even your mom doesn’t understand why she does what she does”. My grandmother was right. I was simply trying to find a way to be closer to my mom. I wanted to help her. I felt powerless.
Growing up with my mom and living with grandparents that survived a genocide certainly shaped how I view mental illness and the work with my patients.
I’m not a huge fan of labels. My experience is that when you label something not only do you need to overcome the affliction, you also need to overcome the label. I certainly understand why a label or a DSM code is applied in a mental health setting: they create a sense of commonality with other clinicians, they act a gateway for billing practices, they offer a common language when writing reports or letters, and when clients do not behave in a clinical setting the clinician can blame the patient versus take responsibility for their inability to make any progress with their client.
Unfortunately, labels also tend to marginalize clients, especially people who are poor or low-income. People with greater financial resources tend to have fewer social problems. Clients without the aid of financial support tend to be at the behest of agencies which are overloaded and they often are only willing to apply a label to make quick work of a new admit. As I’ve worked as a clinician in a variety of agencies and with clients on either side of the financial spectrum, I’m convinced this point-of-view is accurate. I’m also embarrassed to admit that early in my clinical career I was entirely too generous with the application of labels on a host of clients. I’m reminded of many assessments and letters and documents that were rife with the misapplication of whatever diagnostic assessment impressed me at the time. I’m grateful that I have grown as a clinician and have grown past the need to both marginalize and stigmatize clients seeking help.
I have suffered with depression for most of my life. Meds only seem to work for a limited period of time. The only thing that seems to help with depression is therapy and volunteer efforts.
I think of mental illness as being on a spectrum, and I’m certain that if most people peeked at the DSM 5 they could probably identify with some of the characteristics of any of the diagnostic criteria. Chronic mental illness is a bit different. I think of chronic mental illness like a radio station: most people who are not mentally ill have the ability to tune into one station; my mother lacked this ability. Attendant to the illness of Schizophrenia belies disorganized thoughts. I’m not sure my mom ever felt normal or had the ability to have coherent and cogent thoughts. Most literature suggests that symptoms of Schizophrenia manifests before the age of 19. While I never had the opportunity to meet any of her family, I have heard enough of my mother’s background to determine that my mom suffered from early-onset Schizophrenia. She likely heard voices and suffered with hallucinations and delusions while she was in Kindergarten.
As hard as it was for me to accept my mom’s mental illness, I am absolutely certain it was just as hard for her to accept that her brain did not function as a normal human being, whatever normal is. I saw a great bumper sticker that said normal is a setting on a washing machine. I think that is pretty spot-on. My mom represented two extremes of a great mind: a tormented human being in her own thought prison and a fantastically talented artist with the capacity to produce great, original work in various mediums which were lauded by art critics throughout the US and the rest of the world. The people who knew my mom suggested she was a great artist and a consummate therapist. I think they were right.
When I was a kid I used to believe that my mom ruined my childhood. I blamed her for creating so much chaos in my life. I assumed she did this intentionally. I grew up in an environment of catastrophic violence. Whenever I had a hard time, I’d point to my mom: I never developed the coping skills needed for a decent life,
I developed PTSD because of my mom and her poor choices, I attracted women who weren’t good for me as I had a poor role model. While this could be great fodder for a therapy visit, it’s also a fantastic way to stay ‘stuck’.
Here’s what I know and believe to be true: my mom did the best she could with what she had. She was incapacitated and couldn’t have functioned any other way. She was living with a disease that affected the way she behaved and thought about people and the world at large. While my mom was sufficiently impacted with mental illness, she had some sense that she couldn’t care for me and let my grandparents raise me. In her mental fugue she had enough clarity to make a decision for my own well-being.
My mom also valued education (she possessed a few graduate degrees) and insisted I followed-through with my own education. She valued self-sufficiency and would remind me that I had the fortitude and capacity to survive. While I lived with her pain and confusion, this experience has remained a catalyst for friends, sponsees, and clients: when people talk to me I’m not shaken by their disclosures. Being able to listen to the pain of another person without flinching is a very concrete experience that allows me to witness humanity. I’m also keenly aware that my mom had wanted to take her own life on several occasions. Had she done that I wouldn’t be here. Because of my mom I had an amazing relationship with my grandparents that would have never been possible had my mom been born without any kind of mental illness.
I never had the opportunity to meet my mom before she died. We were estranged for the last 45 years she was alive; my mom became lost in her white power/Nazi beliefs which sufficiently ended our relationship. I dated an African American woman who converted to Judaism for me (we had planned to get married further down the road), and according to my mother, I had “polluted the bloodline”. I was born in the Projects (Flatbush Gardens) so I’m not exactly sure what white trash ideals she wanted me to preserve.
Was I affected by my mom’s mental illness? Certainly. Do I have more work to do? Absolutely. While I can focus on what I didn’t get and be upset that there are places in my life that feel incomplete, I am left with a striking revelation: there are gifts in the darkness.
However you choose to deal with your own distress, good luck on your path.