It was a session on a strange rainy day. When I stepped out of the house, it was raining cats and dogs. Driving in the rain was tough - visibility was severely hampered. But I had to go and be there. But it got sunny right at the destination.
I reached a little late and we quickly went into session.
The beginning was just a blur. But I rapidly got to tears.
He : You still carry him around you, though you have lost him. It is your loss. But you don't feel like you have lost him because he is still alive.
Me : I believe we still have a chance because we are both alive.
He : Under your current circumstances, and based on how you communicate, do you really believe you do?
Me : I don't know. I feel we could.
He : He is still alive, but he is a ghost to you. There are these things about him that you love and cherish and you carry the memories of those things dear to you, but you are letting the ghost haunt you and stop you from being and doing what you should do for you.
Me : Maybe. He always enabled me. He was always there for me. I cannot think of him in a bad light. He is the ideal.
He : You are right, he is the noble one. He always did the right things and he was always the one for you. That's why when your friends bad mouth him to try help you, you cannot agree with them about it. You cannot see him as that.
Me : Yes. They don't understand, they believe that by bad mouthing him, they can help me move, but I know him in ways they don't and I cannot agree with them when they do that.
He : You know you did all you can to keep it going. He did not do what he should have in that one moment. He, after all, is human. He had a weak moment and he could not step up.
Me : I have never known him to be weak. I was the weak one all the time and he was always my strength. I was always fluttery and easily unnerved. He was the perfect height - my head would rest on his chest when we hugged. He was stoic. Very stoic. I could rest my head against my chest and hear his never changing heartbeat any time and feel all right.
He : That was a time when he had to choose. He had to pick between the two things that mattered most to him. He felt he had no choice and he did what he felt he had to. Do you understand that you did not make the decision that he did and it is not your fault or your burden to bear?
Silence. Deafening silence. And then, sobs.
He is infallible. He is noble. He was the strong one. Could a moment have overwhelmed him and made him human? Is this shrink really right? Was I punishing myself for something someone else did not do when it was on them to take it forward?
After more sobbing, I managed to whisper a loud yes.
He : When your loss is a ghost, you cannot let that ghost haunting you get in your life. If you did, you would probably not get your way.
It was like a mirror cracked in the moment and I felt I was seeing things very differently then, like the reflection was now too many and I had actually only stuck to one way of looking at it and now that there were all these other ways to see it, I had to take them all in and process them differently and I felt I had to do in immediately, lest the moment begone and I lose it.
One moment of weakness would have led to a lifetime of sorrow. I was keeping myself busy to not process this thing out of my system and it had just built walls around it in me, waiting to be found later and have me relive all the precious moments with the painful ones.
He : Can you, if you will try it, look back on him and not let the ghost haunt you, but feel good that you had all the wonderful memories that you do and not be brought down by it? It is not easy, but if you try it, will you be able to do that?
Me : I can only know if I try it. But I don't think I can right now.
He : It takes time, but you know how you feel about things right now, so, can you channel the strength you felt in him and feel happy when you look behind at the wonderful things you had with him, without feeling sad?
It is a huge step. I can try. Like I should. I will only know if I do. And I will.
