TWENTY-TWO
Aug 2, 2012
1:23 p.m.
Mathieu arrived a few minutes early for his first counselling session. Dr. Gilmour’s office was located on the upper floor of a small plaza at the corner of Broadview and Carling, just beside the medical building where he’d seen the knee specialist all those years ago. He climbed out of his truck and took the stairs to the second floor, room 205, to the right of the stairwell. He grabbed the doorknob, took a deep breath, and entered. There was some ambient music playing from ceiling speakers, barely loud enough to be heard. No one else was in the waiting area and Mathieu was relieved. No point parading his problems in front of a bunch of strangers.
“Mathieu Delacroix for Dr. Gilmour,” he said to the young woman behind the counter.
She gave Mathieu a smile that was meant to put him at ease, a smile he was sure she’d perfected over time greeting everyone who came into the office, a smile that was sunny and beautiful but did nothing to chase the anxiety he’d felt all day. “Please fill these out and Dr. Gilmour will be with you in a few minutes.”
He took a seat, filled out the forms, and just as he finished, Dr. Gilmour appeared from behind a closed door. She took the forms and led him back to her office. He sank into a plush leather sofa chair while Dr. Gilmour sat at her desk and reviewed his information. When she was done, she pulled her chair around the desk and positioned it closer to where he was sitting. Mathieu retreated further into the couch.
“I thought I’d be lying down,” he said, his voice sounding nervous and childish to his ears. “That’s how it is in movies.”
“I prefer a more relaxed atmosphere where we can discuss comfortably. Can I get you some water, coffee?”
“Water would be nice.” His salivary gland had been locked away.
“So, things have been a bit overwhelming lately?”
Mathieu felt the muscles in his face tighten. “That’s being kind.”
“How would you describe it?”
He took a sip of water. “I’d say my life has gone to hell. Sorry, didn’t mean—”
“Don’t mince words. Part of dealing with our feelings is to be honest about how we feel. You shouldn’t hold anything back, okay?”
Mathieu nodded. “My daughter died in a car crash. My wife was driving.”
Dr. Gilmour made notes but didn’t say anything.
“And now we’ve split up.”
“So some major trauma lately.”
“And my grandmother, the woman who raised me because my parents died when I was six, just passed away too.”
Dr. Gilmour jotted that down too. “How does all that make you feel?”
There is was. He’d been waiting for this part. Isn’t that what they always asked in the movies? My daughter is dead. My grandmother is dead. My parents are dead. And my wife left me because I treated her like crap. Woohoo! Let’s party!
“How would you feel?”
“Let’s concentrate on you for now,” she said.
Mathieu stood and paced. Dr. Gilmour looked quite young but he figured the accreditations on her wall affirmed she knew what she was doing. He didn’t see any pictures of kids or significant other on her desk. “I loved my daughter . . .”
He covered his eyes but it only made Nadia’s image clearer.
“Why don’t you sit?”
“I feel like you’re looking down at me from your chair.”
Dr. Gilmour repositioned the other sofa chair so she would face him, and sat. Now, they’d be eye-level.
After a moment, Mathieu returned to his sofa chair.
“Did you want to tell me about your daughter? What was her name?”
“Nadia. She was fourteen. An only child.”
Dr. Gilmour noted that too. “That’s a big loss.”
“You have no idea.” How could he make this stranger understand how hollow he felt inside, like someone, God really, had carved out not just his heart, but his soul? Despair glued his reality. But it was coming apart. “It’s not right.”
“Tragedies never feel right,” she said. “You’ve lost a lot of people in your life, but losing Nadia is especially difficult for you.”
“It’s impossible, it’s . . .” Sitting in this office where secrets were laid bare, where the truth was finally spoken, where it was okay to show your emotions, Mathieu finally gave in to his grief. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just so . . .”
“No, it’s quite all right. Letting go is a sign that you’re ready to begin the healing process.”
He wiped his nose with a tissue. “I don’t know if I’m really ready. Just because I cried like a baby doesn’t mean anything.”
“You may not feel it right at the moment, but I’ve seen this many times. It’s like a purging.”
“I’m not much of a believer. My grandfather guilted me into coming here. I don’t see how any of this can help. I’m supposed to tell you how I feel and everything will be fine? I don’t think so.”
“It’s normal to doubt the process the first time,” she said, “but don’t give up on it just yet. Let’s give it a month to see if we can make some progress.”
He threw the tissue in the trash basket beside him and finished the water bottle.
“You’ve started taking Cymbalta,” she said. “It can take two or three months for the benefits to become noticeable. How are you sleeping?”
“Not great.”
“Energy?”
“I’ve had to force myself to get things done. Helping Grandpa clean out the house drained me, but I still couldn’t get a full night’s sleep.”
“How’s your appetite?”
“Lost ten pounds.”
She made several notes. “Do try to eat, even small meals, to keep your strength and blood sugar stable. It’ll help with your moods.”
“I can try.”
“You didn’t say here on the form, but have you had suicide thoughts?”
He wanted to lie, tell Dr. Gilmour that he’d never think of doing something so stupid, but being dishonest wasn’t going to help. He also didn’t want to disappoint his family, especially Nadia. “Not since I called my grandfather last Saturday.”
“Did you want to tell me about it?”
He fixed his gaze on the empty water bottle in his hands, unscrewed the cap and screwed it back on. “I’d made a bed for this young couple’s three-year-old daughter and when they came to pick it up, their little girl looked so much like Nadia at that age, and . . . it just made me miss my daughter that much more, and I just lost it.”
“Killing yourself will not bring her back.”
“It will stop the pain.”
Dr. Gilmour put the end of her pen in her mouth. “What if we can make that pain go away using a different approach?”
“And what if it doesn’t work?”
“Nothing is hopeless.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Tell me one thing about Nadia.”
He straightened and his eyes glowed, softening the lines on his face. “She had a dimple on her right cheek. Just the one. And when she smiled, that dimple made me feel so happy and secure, as if it was a warm blanket wrapped around me. It’s hard to explain but that’s how I felt. And I loved having her sit on my lap while we watched TV, her arms around my neck, the smell of baby shampoo in her hair from her bath. I don’t know how many times we watched the Lion King, but she could recite every character’s lines before they said them.”
“Those are the moments you need to hang on to when you feel you can’t go on anymore.”
“But they make it worse, I miss her even more. I’m never going to share such moments with her ever again. My baby girl is gone.” Those last words, the weight of their reality, felt like being left behind at the fair, abandoned.
“What you just described wasn’t recent, that Nadia wasn’t the one you just lost. You might be holding on to a time that you remember as the best time in your life. Nadia wasn’t a baby anymore. She was a teenager,” she looked at her notes, “fourteen.”
Mathieu didn’t say anything.
“Maybe she’d become a handful?”
He simply nodded.
“Do you feel you had some unfinished issues to resolve with Nadia?”
Mathieu leaned back against the sofa chair. “We weren’t as close.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
He slowly squeezed his right hand around the plastic water bottle, crushing the brittle container. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Ready?”
“For Nadia to grow up.”
“Could that reality be preventing you from moving forward?”
He rubbed his face.
Dr. Gilmour waited.
“You think that’s my problem?” he said.
“No. Not entirely. Kids grow up and become independent. That’s reality. Some do it in a rebellious way, annihilate the parents, while others continue to develop their relationship with their parents while learning to handle their independence. Sounds like Nadia was a bit rebellious.”
“I still loved her.”
“A parents’ love is the strongest love. No denying. And losing a child is the hardest thing for a parent to go through. Regrets are inevitable. Thankfully, we have our memories but they too can skew what we remember and become a barrier.”
“I spent months looking at Nadia’s pictures and watching home-movies. My wife, Lori-Anne, didn’t understand why I did it. She refused to come into her room, like denying Nadia was gone would make her less dead. I didn’t see her way as being any better than mine.”
“Denial is one of the five stages of loss and grief. So is depression. Everyone deals with tragedy differently. But at some point, everyone has to reach the last stage, the acceptance stage, so they can move on.”
“Accept that Nadia is dead?”
“Yes,” she said. “Right now, it may seem impossible, but that’s where we need to get you to.”
“And if we can’t?”
Dr. Gilmour folded her hands over her notepad. “You wouldn’t have come here, no matter how guilty your grandfather made you feel, unless you were, maybe not ready, but at least wanting to get to that next stage. Problem is you don’t know how to get there.”
“And you’ll get me there?”
She shook her head. “I’ll give you the tools you need. You’re a carpenter so you understand the importance of having the right tool for the job. That’s what we’re going to do. Fill your toolbox with the tools you need to get your life back.”
“Does it really work?” He couldn’t hide the skepticism not just from his voice, but from the disbelief in his eyes.
“Yes, it really does.” Dr. Gilmour glanced at her watch. “I think today we’ve established a foundation to build on. Would you agree?”
“I guess.”
Dr. Gilmour stood. “We’ve made progress. It may not feel that way, but we did.”
Mathieu struggled to get out of the chair.
“Will you be staying with your grandfather?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. Why?”
“It might be better if you weren’t alone for the time being.”
There were still things to clean up at his grandfather’s, the yard needed some work, and the garage was full of tools that could be sold. “I’m sure he won’t mind the company.”
“Good. Here’s my card with my home number, just in case you need to talk this weekend. Otherwise I’ll see you Tuesday.”
Mathieu left the office and closed the door quietly, afraid to destroy the fragile foundation that Dr. Gilmour was so confident they’d established. To him it felt as flimsy as a wooden box put together with hammer and nails instead of a dovetail joint.