Rough Seas:     24" x 36"
These loosely paraphrased passages from Kathy Reichs “Deadly Decisions” reflect my thoughts of therapy with this patient.  The picture of … her mother was equally heartbreaking.  The picture had caught a slim…  Japanese, Hawaiian woman with her head thrown back with her mouth wide and lips stretched inwards and down in an inner cry of agony.   Her knees were buckled; hands clasped below her lips, and on either side a large local “Tita” woman supported her.  Her unspeakable grief screamed in her face and posture as disjointed words spewed forth.  The dead sister of the woman had two younger sisters ages 4 and 6. After the death, her husband had gone incommunicado and disappeared for several weeks.   I was certain at that time she couldn’t process or accept anything I said.  

By the fifth session most of the old painful memories had been exposed. There were old bones, bare of flesh, flashy clothes rotted with time and many faded pictures, children made to carry their slippers and walk on the jagged rocks, some naked and some in tattered cloths but all with lost eyes. “Ashes to ashes” someone had said and an auntie said, “more like shit to shit.” Her voice was tense with excitement  and the callousness was irritating.  “Death hurts; it hurts bad and as simple as that is to say it doesn’t make the hurt any less.  Death ripples out from the one who dies and hurts and hurts those who love them and those who tried to help them.

The mother’s sobs were terrible and the therapist reached to help her. She did not acknowledge the offer; she just held her memories and cried into her hands, leaving us both feeling utterly helpless. I watched her cry and the tears stained the last letter she had received from her daughter.  The younger sister sat on the floor in the room and had selected a black crayon from a box I kept open and drew repeating angry black circles on a piece of white paper, never stopping.