Alice

For the five years that I have been with Alice, I have dreaded the day when I would no longer be seeing her. It is common, in fact expected, that a client will bond with her therapist, and I fell easily into the role. However, I always pushed the thought of ending our sessions out of my mind, denying vaguely that it would happen. Now, unexpectedly, her health has stolen her away. The surgery she had in April was fraught with complications and she is still too sick to leave the hospital. She has had to leave her job and give up the house she had just moved into before the operation. She has had to give her beloved dog, Roze, to a neice. When she is well enough to leave the hospital, she will have no where to go and have no income. Her daughters plan to take her to Connecticut to live with them. In a few short months her life has been irrevocably changed.

I try to cope with her unbearable situation and, consequently, my own. I dare not imagine that she will not recover. I think only of the present struggle and hope for success in the doctors' efforts to find out what is wrong with her and treat it. As for me, the loss of her in my life is immeasurable. Because she has succeeded so well with my therapy, I am able to hold myself together and cope. Years ago I couldn't have done it. But it is an agony difficult to describe when one loses a mother, sister, friend and intimate confidante all in one devastating moment. She has been all of these to me, and more.

Alice, how can I go on without you? Because you have taught me how, I will do it.