Chapter 19

He spent most of the afternoon thinking about the things he had repeated in his life, and wondered if he was learning things or if he was instead like an etch-a-sketch which kept getting erased every time someone shook it up a little. He was after all on the road, drinking heavily, and living with no sense that he had any kind of responsibility to other people. He thought about his patients back home and what they must be thinking right now, and hoped they would understand. He was in a place right now where he was not sure he should be in charge of anyone’s mental health, as his own hung precariously in the balance.

     On the other hand he realized that the moments of pain in his life had also been the most instructive, and he kept a glimmer of hope that this could also perhaps be one of these times. He was experiencing pain like he had never known before, but he also was surviving, one precarious day at a time. He was fairly certain he wanted to hang around for a little while longer despite all of the painful feelings he was working through.

     As he entered into Texas, he once again began to see the signs for the Big Texan, and he smiled and remembered the first time he had made this trip. He was 22 and it was when he first started entertaining the idea of being a writer. He searched his memory and remembered a short story he had written during that time period about a lost soul traveling around the country after having his heart broken. It was strangely prophetic, as a lot of things in his life had been, and he had always been a believer in looking for and evaluating signs. What had he learned since that first story?

     For one he had, at least for a season in his life, loved well. He remembered a kind of longing to feel something like that when he was a younger man, but he instead had spent the next decade drinking, chasing women, and generally avoiding any kind of commitments. He now realized this whole period of his life was an attempt to avoid pain, which he knew as a psychologist was almost the surest way of finding it. All of life came with some kind of price tag, and the bigger the reward, the bigger the jeopardy. Love was absolutely the most dangerous yet rewarding pursuit, and right now he couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it. It was so fleeting.

     As he thought about all of these things he pulled over to look up a quote Victor Frankl on the subject, as he needed a little inspiration. The quote read, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 

     Frankl had always been an inspiration to him, as his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” had been one of the first things he had read that had drawn him towards psychology. He thought about the power of choice and how it related to his own life right now and where it might be headed. People had counted on him, regardless of his own feelings about the world and his larger place in it. He had gotten many letters over the years from former patients who had written to him and told him these very things. Some of these letters were the only fuel that had kept him going in his darkest days.

     As he got closer to Amarillo, he thought about resilience and some of the ways he had accessed this over the course of his life. He had always advocated for the idea that a sense of humor was a person’s greatest asset in making emotional choices, and now he decided it was time for him to practice what he preached. He found himself pulling into the Big Texan to relive an old memory and once again see if he could take on a 72-ounce steak. He was sure it would at least be good for a smile, and right now that was exactly what he needed. 

Chapter 18

      As he left Memphis, he felt a slight pang of regret. He had made a real human connection there, and found that rather surprising given his current emotional state. He knew people needed other people, even when, and perhaps especially when, they were at their worst. Still it wouldn’t have been something he would have predicted for himself. 

     As he crossed the Tennessee state line, the song “Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan came on, and he took it as a kind of a sign. He had loved the song since he was a teenager, and for a moment stopped to consider why that was. It was a rambling, confusing song, but at its core seemed to be about a man searching for a lost love of his. As a kid he had always wondered if he would ever love someone like that, and now, years later, he had his answer. The difference was he couldn’t find his missing girl no matter how hard he looked. All he could do was chase memories of her.

       He turned up the song as it came to an end, fixating on the last verse and thinking again about the parallels to his own life, he listened to Dylan sing’

 “So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't what they're doing with their lives
But me I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in Blue.

          It described exactly how he felt right now. Completely jumbled up in a sea of melancholia while also searching for something elusive. Oddly, it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.

     He took a look at his map, and suddenly felt a strange compulsion to reach Amarillo Texas on the next journey of his trip. He remembered stopping there when he was in his early twenties on a long trip home to the state of Washington from New Orleans. He was running out of money after visiting an old flame down there, and saw advertisements for the “Big Texan,” a 72 ounce steak that they served in a restaurant in Amarillo if you could finish the entire steak in an hour. He was sure at the time he could do it, and he was wrong. The steak ended up costing him like 75 bucks, which left him coasting in on fumes by the time he finally made it back home.

     He laughed at the memory, while also remembering that it was the pursuit of then loss of a woman that had sent him on that excursion as well. Once again he was repeating a familiar pattern, and he thought again about the larger implications. Perhaps he was a modern version of Sisyphus, doomed to push a rock up a hill for the rest of his life, only to have it continually fall back down to the bottom.

     He spent most of the afternoon driving through the state of Oklahoma, where it seemed he went hours without seeing another human being. He found himself thinking about one of the last clients he had seen before the accident, and how he had described a fear of “disappearing” when he went days at a time without human interaction. John had been oddly touched by the revelation, and now, for the first time, he truly got a sense of what the man had meant. He pinched his skin and looked in the rear view mirror, trying to get some proof that he himself wasn't disappearing. 

Chapter 17

    The next morning John woke up entangled in arms he didn’t recognize, and felt an odd pang of loss. It was in this very scenario that he first woke up with his future wife, and, looking over and seeing the pretty journalist, he felt the painful realization that he would never wake up with her again.  He shook the cobwebs out of his head and remembered that he and Amy had retired to his room to continue their conversation about love, and had would up agreeing to fall asleep together. It was an odd and empty consolation prize considering the life he had only recently experienced.

     For a moment John once again channeled his cosmic time-traveler, and remembered how he and Stephanie had also woken up in a fog, and how what followed were the most surprising and even miraculous events of his life. He knew instinctively that this would never happen to him again, but still, having experienced the impact of a lightening strike the first time, he left himself open to the idea that he had something to learn here.


“So, are we going to be weird this morning or are we going to be friends,” Amy said as she laughed.


“Weird. Weird for sure,” John said as he smiled, while also realizing it was the first time he had truly laughed since he first heard the news that would change his life.


“Well, okay then. As long as we’re on the same page. I’m a journalist buddy. We’re supposed to drink like this, but honestly I’m a little worried about you. So how long do you think this Bourbon tour of yours is going to go on?”


“You know I was just thinking about that. Somehow I feel like I have learned all I was supposed to learn from Memphis on this particular spin. I was actually thinking of heading to the Grand Canyon if you can believe that. I worked there when I was 22 and I kind of wanted to see what has changed.”


“Still a big Canyon bud. Has been since before you and I were here and will be long after we are gone. I have to admit I’m becoming a little fascinated by this little tour of yours. You remind me a little bit of some kind of genius Peter Pan. Know what the first line of that book is? “All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.” Sounds a lot like the things you write about if you ask me.”

“Interesting you say that,” John replied. “I find myself thinking about and ruminating on what Nietzche called eternal return all the time. What if we just have to keep doing this all over again? Is it worth the pain? The loss? If so, maybe being an adventurous nomad is the way to go. Just be some kind of stone that keeps rolling without picking up any kind of moss. I don’t know. For a sacred moment in my life I didn’t believe that at all. Now I can’t fathom wanting to feel this kind of pain over again.”


“Well I tell you buddy, I’m not sure I can ease your pain, but I do get this strange feeling I’m going to be seeing you again. I have to admit I’m actually feeling a little more hopeful after spending a little time with you, depressing as you are. I’m going to leave you with my card, and I hope you’ll call me sometime. One fellow traveler to another. Maybe we can help each other out in some way.”

As John watched her gather her things and head for the door, he shook his head and smiled at her bravado. In another life he would have wanted to know a lot more about her, but for now he knew it was time to get out of Memphis and continue on his journey. He grabbed her card and put in his wallet, and thought about Peter Pan as he started to pack up and get ready to hit the road. 

Chapter 16

"The thing is Amy, and since you asked specifically if that has been my experience, I’ll tell you something important that I have learned. Love is everything in life. The pursuit of riches, fame, adventure, whatever, are all secondary reflections of a person’s pursuit of love. I know that because I am living it. My wife died a few weeks ago and I can tell you without equivocation that she was the most powerful force in my life, and there really hasn’t been a close second. I’ve spent my life as a writer looking for the Rosebud moment in people’s lives, but now I’m rethinking all of that."



“Well John, I have to tell you, having recently come out of a very bad relationship, that sounds both inspirational as well as kind of unreal. Personally I’ve come to a place where I’ve kind of given up on the idea of romantic love. It just seems like it ends up hurting too much. I must admit though, my research has taken me in another direction, and talking to you may shed even more light on this question. Are you saying you believe in soulmates or something like that?”

“I never did Amy, believe me. I spent the first 38 years of my life as cynical and fearful about love as any person I have ever met. I just kind of stopped thinking anything like that could happen to me. Then, on one strange day not unlike many others in my life, everything changed. I can’t really explain it except that it was like being struck by an emotional thunderbolt and from the first day I met her, everything was different.”

“Well tell me about the thunderbolt. Do you think this emotional connection is about being drawn to the missing parts of yourself? Or are you suggesting it is something bigger than that? Some kind of cosmic and mystical connection? I’m a journalist and I want to understand. Understand why it is so many truly great people talk about love like this, while others like me seem to flounder around in the dark. What, in your experience is the answer?”

“I guess a part of it goes back to what the Buddhists say, “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” That is my psychologist answer anyway. I know for me personally I had failed at love so many times that I wasn’t even really looking anymore, so I’m not sure that totally explains it. I think you’re partially right when you talk about it as being drawn to missing parts of yourself, only I would take that one step further. It’s like being drawn to something that you didn’t even know was missing and therefore had no point of comparison. The closest I can come to explaining it is feeling totally understood by someone. Understood in a way that goes beyond words and conversation.”

“That does sound nice, I admit, but I’m still not convinced. Maybe I’ll know it when I see it someday. But in the meantime I’m going to have another drink. Will you be joining me?"

Chapter 15

After an enjoyable afternoon celebrating happy hour in Memphis, he went back to the hotel to take a nap and think about what might be next for him. Although he was enjoying the city very much and had gained a great deal of insight while he was there, he was enjoying the idea of both freedom and travel too much to stay in one place right now. He decided he would spend one more night in Memphis, and then continue on.

     He showered and changed into a jacket, and decided he would stay close to home tonight in the lobby bar at the Peabody. Although it was prone to tourists, he also loved the look and feel of the wooden décor and the old southern charm that it exuded. After a short hiatus, he had once again developed a fondness for the bourbons of the south, and decided he would sample several of them before saying his goodbyes to Memphis.

     He found a seat at the bar, ordered a Knob Creek neat, and settled in to watch the people and make his peace with Memphis. Adorned in his jacket and slacks, he almost felt like he could be a Memphis lawyer, relaxing after work and wanting to unwind a little bit. He was feeling less like an imposter and more like a chameleon these days, and marveled at how far away he felt from his identity as a psychologist, father, and husband he had been so comfortable with just a few short weeks before.

     After his second drink, he noticed an attractive looking woman had taken a seat at one of the tables, and John noticed she had looked over at him a number of times as she drank her wine. In another life he would have immediately walked over and spoken to her, but right now felt totally disconnected from any kind of sexual feelings. In his marriage, he had learned he had spent a lifetime pursuing sex in search of some kind of fleeting intimacy, but with his wife he had experienced it all.

     After another drink, the woman joined John at the bar, and for a moment he felt a tinge of both flattery as well as arousal. Would a life with another woman ever be possible for him? Right now he couldn’t even fathom it, but he left a little room in his badly damaged heart that one day he might feel different.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” the woman said. “But have I seen you on TV before? Like a documentary on comedians I believe?”

“Yes, you might have,” John replied. “Although I must admit I don’t recall ever being recognized before. Are you a comedian or something?”

“I’m a journalist, and my name is Amy. I’m writing a book on Memphis musicians and I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on the relationship between creativity and destructiveness. I must confess I even read your book on musicians and found it quite insightful.”

“Well I guess you know my name is John then,” he replied as he extended his hand. “I have to admit that I have been quite charmed by your little city here over the past couple of days. I would be very curious as to what you’ve found so far. Is there a specific angle you are taking with your project?”

“Well, it’s funny, I thought the book was going to be about one thing, but it turned into something completely different. I wanted to discuss the relationship between a career in music and the rising and falling pattern of their lives as their fame waxed and waned, but my research has taken me elsewhere. What I found, was that Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, all of them really. What they were actually looking for was for someone to really love them. I know that might sound Pollyanna, but the theme keeps showing up again and again. You’ve written extensively about dead celebrities John, has any of that been your experience?”

John thought long and hard about the question, an also about this woman who was now sitting beside him. He had written about the idea of synchronicity often in his work, and truly believed that people were often placed into your life for important reasons when you simply open yourself up to this possibility. Right now he felt very cautious and guarded, but also knew that his current approach to living would not produce a desirable result in the end. He took a long, deep, breath, and decided to take a leap of faith. 

Chapter 14

He woke up the next morning at the Peabody with a tremendous headache, and realized that all of this escapism also came with a price. He vowed to do something more active today, and decided he would visit both Sun Studios and Graceland for a little education about the legends of music that had come out of Memphis over the years.

     He got the idea for his field trip after flipping through the channels and seeing that the movie “Walk the Line” about the life of Johnny Cash was on. He found himself reflecting on one particular scene where Sam Phillips asks a young Johnny Cash, “If you had one song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth, what would it be.” He thought about the question as it related to his own life. What was his defining contribution? He had written books and counseled thousands of people, but the thing in his life he had been the most proud of was truly having loved another person with all of his heart. Now that was gone.

     After his visit to Sun Studios, he headed over to Graceland, which was a place that had always been truly fascinating to him. The mystique of Elvis was such an interesting phenomenon from a psychological perspective, and since his first visit to Graceland as a kid, he had been intrigued by the whole experience.

     While he was on the tour, he couldn’t help but think about how Elvis had truly gained the whole world, only to lose his own soul. His eventual dependence on both uppers and downers to manage the ebbs and flows of his life was deeply saddening to John. Like John, Elvis had once found salvation in a wife and a daughter, but eventually lost it all. His eventual death in the bathroom from a drug overdose was as tragic as it was wasteful, and John reminded himself that he himself would also run out of time one day. Elvis was only a bit older than him when he died.

     The final stop on the tour was at the gravesite, where John observed a couple of older women silently weeping as they knelt over the tombstone. Elvis had left a remarkable legacy, and John watched the women closely, and wondered if anyone would ever weep for him when he was gone. He realized it was a selfish thought, but also knew that these kinds of feelings were actually quite natural in the face of death. Many of the tears at funerals were about this very thing.

     John took a quick tour of the Elvis museum to look at all of the cars and Elvis’ planes, and thought again about the false pursuit of materialism as a means to happiness. Many people spent a lifetime in pursuit of such things, and keeping up with the Joneses was an enduring part of American culture that John knew from his experience as a therapist was ultimately futile. Ultimately it is the depth and richness of our relationships that predicted happiness, as evidenced by Elvis’ sad and lonely demise despite all of his riches.

     He spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer with the after work crowd in Memphis, and was again struck by how he was lost in America right now. He did his best to adjust to the southern accents and the conservative nature of the conversations, and found himself conversing with a number of people at the bar, which he took as a good sign. He was moving from a sense of total alienation and isolation to a feeling that he needed to slowly begin to rejoin the human race again. He found himself reflecting on the idea about human relationships as a predictor of happiness for the rest of the afternoon, and decided he wanted to take at least a few small steps in the direction of other people. 

Chapter 13

The next morning he left Kentucky, feeling like he had somehow internalized something that he was supposed to have experienced. He was feeling better now, but still knew he was a long way from being okay. What he had lost could not be replaced, and right now he was still trying to find reasons to keep on going. The road had been an interesting and even enlightening distraction, but sooner or later he knew was going to have to face his life again.

Looking at his map, he decided he would head towards the Grand Canyon for his next adventure. He had worked there as a kid just out of college, and during that time had one of the truly transcendent moments of his life at the bottom of the canyon in the dead of night. Emotionally and spiritually, he felt like he was again in the dead of night, and it couldn’t hurt to retrace his steps again.

He spent most of the day driving, and felt a kind of odd sadness as he crossed the Kentucky border into Arkansas. Something about the hills and the colors and the people he had met had been healing, and he once again felt on unfamiliar ground as he continued to venture to the west.

He decided he would stop in Memphis for a few days, as that town had also been a part of his somewhat checkered past before he had become a psychologist. He remembered his days there walking up and down Beale Street drinking beer and listening to music, and right now that seemed like a welcome distraction. He was regressing, he knew that, but the thought didn’t particularly bother him right at this time.

As he drove, he found himself remembering a quote from Richard Bach, and pulled over to the side of the road to find it on his phone. It read,

“Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”
He though about this as it related to his own life, and reflected on how his current adventure may be related. He felt like he was bound by nothing, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to stick around either.

A couple of hours later he was checking in to the world famous Peabody hotel, a place he normally would not have stayed at, but somewhere he was happy to spend the money on given his current situation. He arrived right as the Duck Walk was going on, a ritual in the hotel where Ducks marched in unison in and out of the hotel’s fountain that was situated in the lobby. Somehow the Ducks always knew right where to go. John chuckled to himself and hoped, somehow, that the same idea was true of him.

He looked out of his room on the 12th floor. The city had a genteel southern charm, and John felt himself getting excited about eating some of the BBQ and getting lost in some Blues music for the evening. Music had always been a source of great comfort for him, even in the days of his darkest and loneliest periods of depression. He was in one the best cities in the world to get lost inside of music, and he looked forward to revisiting a sad and fond memory from his past life.

He slept for a few hours before tackling the town, and had a dream about his farm that he hadn’t had since he had met his wife and started his new life with she and their daughter. It was a recurring dream from his childhood, where he was wandering alone on his grandparent’s farm, looking for someone to play with him. He had processed the dream as a patient in therapy, and had spent countless hours wondering what it might mean. He eventually concluded that the dream reflected a powerful desire to be close to others and to also feel a sense of safety while seeking this closeness.

Now he was the owner of the farm, and he had made his dream come true when he had married his wife Stephanie and adopted his daughter Kim. He had never had the dream again after he had found them, until now that is, and he woke up wondering if he was now back in the same psychological hole from which he started. Had he learned anything on his journey? Or was he destined to continue to struggle out of the dark and into the light for the rest of his days? He realized it was a morbid thought, but the dream had been far from comforting to him.

Chapter 12

John spent the next couple of weeks exploring Kentucky, and felt he was coming slowly back to live exploring the hills, mountains, and hollers of this strange and mysterious state. He spent most of his days hiking and exploring the countryside, and most of his nights sampling the various bourbons from all around the state. He was feeling much better during the days, but at night the demons would come creeping back in and make sleep very difficult for him. As Mark Twain had once said, “In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race- never quite sane in the night.”

At the end of his third week in Kentucky, John was beginning to feel that perhaps it was time to move along. He had grown quite comfortable with the people and places here, but instinctively felt that there was more he needed to do to complete this odd and deeply personal healing quest he was on.

He decided that he would hike back up to the top of his little mountain again and say goodbye to this little corner of the world that had been such a comfort to him. The temperature had dropped considerably in the time he had been in Kentucky, and he had added a few small additions to his wardrobe as he has progressed. He had left Chicago looking in a suit and a tie. Now he looked like something out of an LL Bean catalogue.

He walked slowly to the top of the mountain, thinking as he did about the idea of mindfulness, and how much he had preached about this idea to his clients over the years. Was it true that there was nothing except the present moment in this life? He certainly had voiced this opinion over the years, but now he thought again how the past and the present seemed to exist in in a kind of mystical dance where one kept informing and changing the other. If you had asked him 2 months ago, he would have said he had a glorious past, as it culminated in finding his wife and daughter. Now, in severe pain, h felt like his past was a kind of a curse he would have to spend a lifetime overcoming. Neither version was the truth, yet somehow, they were both completely true in their own way. Time was a very fluid concept.

As he reached the top of the peak, he looked around and heard the birds and the leaves and the wind, and felt that somehow everything must be connected in a way he just didn’t understand. He allowed for the possibility that this could change. His life had certainly changed before, and he knew it could again.

He opened up a bottle of Knob Creek whiskey he had purchased for the occasion and took a small swig, savoring the taste and enjoying the complexity of the flavor. He had learned quite a bit about Bourbon over the last few weeks, and was learning how to sip his drinks again after weeks and even years of gulping down whatever it was that was n front of him. He realized his relationship with alcohol was a dangerous one, but right now addressing that particular issue was not high on his list of priorities.

He thought about Katie and Brian as he sat at the little picnic area at the top of the small mountain. He had been both impressed and jealous of their lives together, and found himself thinking about all of the time he had wasted in his life before he had finally met Stephanie and found happiness. Why hadn’t he been willing to take a chance on love in his life? Was he too picky? Too damaged? Or was it that Stephanie was his soul mate and that it had taken a lifetime to find her?

As the sun started going down he found himself remembering the lyrics to an old Kentucky folk song he had learned about in a class he ha taken way back during his life as an undergraduate. It was called “High on the Mountain” and it had a haunting and wistful quality that John had always been drawn to. He sung the lyrics quietly to himself,

“High on the mountain, wind blowing free,
thinking about the days that used to be,
yes, high on the mountain standing all alone
wondering where the years of my life have flown.”

and slowly drank his Bourbon as the sun gave way to night.

Chapter 11

Before John approached the kids, he found himself lost in an old memory. He felt like Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five, and wondered if he had gotten unstuck in time. In this particular memory, he was 24, and he was driving an old Volkswagen Bus to Glacier National Park to work for the summer. He had set up a camp next to a couple of kids a little younger than him, and they had spent the night talking and laughing and drinking beer.

John hadn’t thought much of the encounter, until years later he was at a party at his girlfriend’s house in Kentucky and felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the same guy from the campsite, and he had remembered John and the conversation they had had that night in Montana so many years ago. It was a stunning coincidence, but not the end of the story. The kid had gone on to tell John that he had become a teacher because of the conversation they had that night. It had been a turning point in his life, as he for the first time began to realize the true power of making a real human connection with someone really was.

So here he was again, an aging Billy Pilgrim remembering that the words he chose to share with others did have some meaning, and that he therefore had an obligation to choose them carefully. Despite how broken he felt right now, this concept seemed clear to him for the first time in quite a while. He took it as a good sign.

Approaching the kids, he saw that they were smoking a joint, and he immediately hoped that they might share. He was getting tired of drinking, but still found the idea appealing that he could feel something else for a while.

“Hey guys, don’t mean to sneak up on you,” John said as he approached.

“Jesus man you sacred us. How long have you been up here?”

“Not long,” John replied. “I’ve been hiking all day and didn’t see anybody, so figured I was out here by myself. It’s amazing up here, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” the young woman said. “We go to school in Colorado, but we’re both from Kentucky. We’ve been coming up here since we were kids. Colorado is beautiful and all, but for us there is nothing like Kentucky in the fall. What brings you up here?”

“Well, I drove threw here when I was a little younger, and I never really forgot about the colors I saw.” John continued. “I always promised myself that one day I would make some time to come back here and really explore it a little more. It’s so quiet. So peaceful.”

As John spoke, the young man reached and offered him a joint, which John gratefully accepted. It had been a number of years since he had smoked marijuana, and the first hit was met with some coughing and discomfort.

“Damn guys, it’s been a while since I smoked. Sorry for the amateur hour,” John said as he laughed. “I really appreciate you sharing. I could use a little mental piece and quiet right now.”

“Oh yea?” the young man asked. “Why is that? What do you for a living that is so stressful?”

“I’m a psychologist,” John replied. “But right now I’m just a guy who needed to be somewhere else for a while.”

“A psychologist?” That’s what I am studying.” The girl replied. “My name is Katie and this is Brian.” He studies sociology. We talk all the time about what we are going to do when we get out of school. What advice would you give to yourself if you were just starting out like we are?”

John thought long and hard about the question. His career as a psychologist had been a successful one. He had written books and been on TV and on the radio more times than he could count, but none of that defined success for him until he had fallen in love and met his wife. He wanted to give an honest answer without discouraging them.

“Let me ask you something,” John replied. “Are you in love? Do the two of you have the kind of relationship that truly deepens your life? If so, savor every second and every moment, because you truly may never pass this way again. That may not seem like an answer to your question, but it’s the best one I have right now. Live your life as deeply and as richly as you can, because one day these things will all inform the choices you make as a therapist.”

“We’ve been dating since we were five.” Katie replied. “Everyone says we’re crazy to tie ourselves down to one person, but for us it has never been a matter of choice. We just belong together.”

“Let me ask you something,” John began, knowing he was in real danger of sounding morbid but unable to stop himself. “What you are describing makes it sound like the two of you are soul mates. What would happen if, God forbid, something should happen to one of you? What kind of life would you want for the other person?”

“I don’t know you, but I’m guessing you are asking us that because you lost someone, is that right?” Brian asked.

“Not just someone,” John replied. “The only thing about this world that ever made sense to me. I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. I guess I’m afraid that’s gonna make it real. So I’ve just been traveling the country and trying to remember to keep breathing in and out.

Brian handed the joint back to John, and he again inhaled deeply, this time adjusting to the smoke and taking it in smoothly. The three of them fell into a peaceful silence, and sat there for a while until the sun began to go down on what had been an important day for John in beginning to put the fractured pieces of himself back together.

Chapter 10

The next morning John was again up very early, and all of a sudden had a huge desire to get out of New York. The city would always have memories for him, but right now he knew he was too susceptible to the emotional wreckage these memories could bring him. He had done what he came to do, and for now, it was the end.

He thought about what he was going to do. He had a number of patients in Chicago who he knew would be curious as to what was going on with him, but he didn’t feel like he was in any shape to go back to work. He had drawn great strength from being a therapist, and a part of him even wondered if the pain he was feeling right now might be something he could use in some way down the road. Right now however, it was simply too raw.

With no real agenda or sense of having to be anywhere, John decided to point the car towards Kentucky. He had lived there briefly as a younger man, and remembered the incredible colors of the Cumberland Gap that he had seen once while driving through. It was a memory he had revisited often in his life, and he had always felt an odd sense of longing to return there one day. He also needed to go to a place that had nothing to do with the memory of his wife and daughter, and right now, Kentucky seemed like a good idea.

John drove most of the day without stopping, feeling somehow that he was going to find something in Kentucky that he was supposed to experience. He realized that he was retracing the steps in his life, and thought again about reliving his live over and over again. Another part of him wanted to go backwards as a way to try and make sense of his life, and try to find some way to observe that it had some kind of meaning. He thought about what Kierkegaard had said about how life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forward. Right now he took no stock in this. He felt an intense desire to go backwards.

After hours of driving, he stopped for a moment to research the best places for fall foliage, and decided on a place called Pine Mountain Kentucky. His only familiarity with the area came from the internet and watching the TV show “Justified” which showcased life in the little clans of Eastern Kentucky. It was a world he was almost totally unfamiliar with, and right now that seemed particularly enticing.

He found a little bed and breakfast at the base of one of the hiking trails and checked in. He planned to do some serious hiking into the mountains today to see if it might provide some clarity. He felt a little like one of those kids being sent off to an Outward Bound school to see if he could kick his habits and find some self-sufficiency out in the wild. Whatever worked.

After purchasing some supplies in the little town, he began his hike up into the hills, not really having any idea how his life had taken such a turn. He thought about his time in Kentucky as a young college student, and in particular that sense of longing he had when he had driven through the beautiful tree-lined hills and valleys. He had once made a mental note to come back and truly see how these people lived. Now he was here.

As he ascended the small mountain, he thought about something the author C.S Lewis had called “tantalizing glimpses.” Lewis was referring to these little moments in his life where he experienced moments of great clarity, which seemed to pass rather quickly, never to return. Lewis wrote a great deal about the idea of longing, and, despite the fact that he had never shared the author’s Christian beliefs, John had always been strangely fascinated by the idea.

Lewis had offered that one such explanation for these glimpses was that God was showing us a little bit of his divine plan in these moments. John’s own journey with spirituality had been a complicated one, but he did agree with Lewis that there was some kind of spiritual communion that could be found in nature. John had felt it and experienced it. As for the idea of a Divine Plan, he was a little more skeptical about that.

On the other hand, John had always felt like he had been spared in his lifetime. Despite the fact that he had spent years drinking heavily and doing all kinds of other awful things to his body, his health had remained intact, something he had always considered a bit of a minor miracle. Meeting his wife and daughter and putting their family together also seemed like some stroke of fortune way beyond luck to him, although now he wasn’t so sure. He wanted to believe in something, but the jury was very much still out on what that might be.

As he reached the top of the mountain, John saw that there was a young couple sitting at a picnic table, and he felt an odd pull to go and talk to them. He had been living almost exclusively inside his own head for the last several days, and he was beginning to miss the day-to-day validation of human contact that let him know he was actually alive and not dreaming all of this.

Chapter 9

Thinking about the idea of scripts and tragedies and choices had made John think about what it was he was doing in New York, and he managed to make it back to the Plaza without incident. Before he went to bed he looked out over Central Park and thought about all of the lives that had passed through there over the years, and what a remarkable place the city really was. People had scratched and clawed and survived so many hardships to make it here to give themselves a chance at a better life, and yet here he stood, with everything he ever needed from a material standpoint, wondering why he should go on. He vowed to think of a reason, but just now, nothing seemed to materialize, and he eventually drifted off to sleep.

He woke up with a sense of urgency that next morning for the first time since the accident. He had an agenda, and showered and got dressed and made his way down past the lobby and into the street. He had something he needed to do today, and he knew if he could get through it, there was at least a chance that he could eventually begin to heal himself.

His first stop was the Dakota Hotel, a place that was morbidly sacred to him, as it was where his favorite singer John Lennon was gunned down so many years ago. Lennon and the Beatles had been an enduring part of his life since he was a child, and somehow he thought it appropriate to revisit this spot, and think about everything that had happened. Like John, his wife and daughter had been taken away from him in a manner he could not yet make any kind of sense of. Yet somehow, the place felt oddly comforting to him, as he had been here many times before and somehow always left with a sense that he was supposed to carry on. To take whatever he had learned from John and to try and pay it forward to honor his memory.

He stood in front of The Dakota for quite some time before crossing the street to Strawberry Fields, a large piece of Central Park dedicated to John and marked by the iconic “Imagine” symbol, which was always full of flowers, candles, and other memorials. John had proposed to his wife here, and their mutual love of John Lennon and his advice to always imagine had been the cornerstone of the promises that they had made to each other.

He eventually found the exact spot he had gotten down on his knees and changed his life forever, thinking as he did about eternal return, and how he felt like he had gone backwards into another time and place in his life. The memory was incredibly vivid to him, and for a moment he felt like he was living it again. He was flooded with the intensity of the memory, and for a moment felt like he had lost all sense of his physical self. Maybe time was a fluid concept, and maybe he could come back to this moment again and again.

Eventually John began to become aware of where and when he was, and he looked around, seeing that it was actually getting dark outside. Seeing all of the Lennon fans, he found the song “#9 Dream” playing in his head, an oddly haunting song, and one of his favorites.

“So long ago
Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me”

John thought about these lyrics in relation to all of the things he had experienced that afternoon. He felt like he was sleepwalking through his life at the moment, and the constant emotional traveling between the past and the present was beginning to take a toll on him. He hailed a cab to the famous Bemelman’s bar, deciding that a night listening to some piano music might be what he needed right now.

Walking into the bar, he could see it was already packed with people huddled around the piano player, and he found a seat at the bar and ordered a Manhattan. He looked around and observed the well-dressed crowd, and thought about how little money and prestige and all of that really mattered. At one time he would have guessed this is what he wanted. Now he just felt very alone.

After the first drink and then another, John felt himself getting lost in the music and actually feeling a little better. Music had always had a mysterious hold on him, and hearing the singer belt out so many of the classics provided some comfort and peace for him, which was something he hadn’t felt in several days.

Chapter 8

John woke up early the next morning and got back on the road, anxious to get out of West Virginia and to be somewhere else. He had come on a very vague whim, yet somehow he was leaving feeling he had found some of what he was trying to find.

He pointed the car towards New York City and began to drive. The fall foliage in the Northeast was beautiful this time of year, and he stopped on a couple of occasions to take in the colors and stretch his legs. It had been a while since he had done this kind of driving, and for a fleeting moment he felt like a kid again on the open road. As he crossed over into Pennsylvania he heard Springsteen’s song “Hungry Heart” come on, which he quickly tuned all the way up. “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride, and I never went back.” Springsteen’s words, but John couldn’t help but wonder if he was ever going back. Right now he couldn’t picture it.

He called ahead to the Plaza hotel overlooking Central Park and made a reservation. It was certainly not the kind of place that he would usually stay, but money meant very little to John at this particular moment. A part of him knew that these might be the end times for him. Although he wanted to find some possible reason to keep on going, right now he couldn’t exactly see what it might be.

After he got settled in he walked across the street to the Duck pond at the park and took a seat. He found himself thinking about Holden Caufield and the Catcher in the Rye, and the significance the park had for Holden in the book all those years ago. He had loved the book as a kid, and returned to if often over the years as a way to revisit a part of his life he now had a great fondness for. For the second time in as many days he found himself wandering into a scene from a familiar work of fiction. It was a kind of strange escapism he guessed, but right now he was content to simply survive based on some kind of odd instinct that was leading him.

He sat at the pond for some time, before he started to get cold, and realized he needed a drink. He decided to take a cab up to The White Horse Tavern, a placed that had gained infamy as the spot Dylan Thomas drank himself to death many, many years before. Dylan has written about not going gentle into that good night, and John had often thought about the poem in terms of his own life. Would people remember him when he was gone? Right now he wasn’t so sure.

Entering the White Horse, John looked around and saw a lot of people had the same idea that he had. The place was a famous watering hole for all kinds of writers over the years, and the ghosts of Kerouac and a number of others seemed to always draw a crowd. Although he wasn’t crazy about the idea of being around a lot of people, he didn’t exactly want to be alone either. He ordered a drink at the bar and sat down, feeling like another writer circling the drain as he took a long sip of his double Maker’s Mark.

As he finished his drink and then another and then another, he thought about Dylan Thomas and how he drank himself to death not far from where he himself was now sitting. Is that the way he would go too? Dying on some barstool? He had spent a number of years trying very hard to distance himself from that lifestyle and those kinds of choices, but now he felt he had fallen back down into the bottom of the rabbit hole.

John thought about what he might tell a patient of his under similar circumstances. He thought about a book he had often discussed with people called “games alcoholics play,” which specifically described something the author referred to as a “Tragic Life Script.” Essentially this described the idea that a person may begin to see their personal narratives as a tragedy, and continue to make choices that supported this kind of a story. Until a couple of weeks ago John would have described his personal journey as one of failure, resilience, and ultimately redemption. Now he wasn’t so sure the story was going to end well.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7
Following the service, John hopped into his car and began to drive, not knowing where he was going or what it was he was looking for. He only knew that it hurt too much to stay in Chicago right now, and he needed to be somewhere else for a while.

He had driven east for several hours when he got a very odd memory of a movie he had seen years ago called “The Mothman Prophecies” about a man who had started to fall apart following the sudden death of his wife. The man in that movie had become obsessed with a little town in West Virginia called “Point Pleasant” where he had some experiences with the paranormal. He did some quick calculations and pointed the car towards West Virginia, knowing that there was a very real possibility that he himself was cracking up as well.

Arriving in the little town, John saw that a monument had been erected depicting the fictional Mothman, who, according to local legends was sometimes seen right before some kind of tragedy was about to happen. John had not come here in pursuit of the paranormal however. He was simply a desperate man following some badly damaged and wounded instincts.

Checking into his modest little motel, John took out the bottle of Maker’s Mark he had purchased on the road and poured himself a tall glass. He had resisted the urge to begin drinking when he was on the road, but now he needed to feel something else. He took a long look at the glass and took a drink. He was going down.

John decided to take his bottle and go for a walk through the town, although it was mostly deserted and empty at that time of the night. As he walked, he thought about how it came to pass that he was wandering through a scene in a bad B movie in search of something he knew could never be. He hoped he wasn’t losing it.

Finding his way back to the main square in the town, he stopped at the crude Mothman statue and sat down. The clerk at the hotel told him that thousands of people came here every year searching for something supernatural, and John wondered if he would now be counted amongst their number. He pulled out his bottle of Maker’s Mark and took a long swig as he thought about it, depressed that it had come to this.

Looking around, John saw that an older man was now sitting on the other side of the statue, and he was for a moment alarmed at this disruption of what he thought was a private nervous breakdown. He saw the man stand up when he looked over, and he realized that he was coming over. Damn.

“Hey there young fella,” the man said. “What are you doing out here so late at night?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” John replied, not, actually wanting to know at all.

“I live here, and have since before all the fuss started,” the man said. “I raised my family here, lost my wife here, and will probably die here. I come downtown sometimes when it is quiet to remember what my town used to feel like before the movie and all the nonsense.”

“I understand the movie starred Richard Gere,” John said, faking ignorance. “Something about him losing his wife and then going a little crazy? Is that right.”

“Well that’s what it was supposed to be about. Instead it turned into a story about monsters and ghosts and a whole lot of hogwash that ruined our town here. Every year we get ghost hunters, and reporters, and a lot of other people trying to stir things up. Let met me tell you something, and I hope you hear me. There’s no such thing as monsters, that’s something most people learn when they start to grow up a little. As for ghosts? That one I can’t answer, I lost my wife 12 years ago and I still miss her so bad it hurts. I guess I would do just about anything to see her again. Hold her again. Hell, even fight with her one more time again. But so far those things all just happen in my mind.”

“Well I’m very sorry for the loss of you wife.” John said quietly. “And I’m sorry about your town. I guess people need to believe in ghosts sometimes. Maybe it’s about wishes. We have things we would still like to say to the people we have lost and we want this so bad we kind of wish them back into existence. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. Did it ever get easier for you after your loss?”

“I wouldn’t say it got easier, but it does get better. It gets better because every day I get to look into the eyes of the children she raised and see her there. I get to look at their kids and see them there as well. I see her every time I go downtown and someone shares a story about her, or I see one of her paintings on the wall of the coffee shop over there. So to answer your question, I guess I’d have to say I still see her every day. Not in the way I used to of course, but in a way that lets me see how much she meant to this world.”

And with that, the man wandered off, lost in his own memoires and apparently not wanting to talk about it anymore. Still, John found himself oddly inspired. Maybe the Stones were right. You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes, in a strange and weird corner of the world, you can get what you need.

Chapter 6

As he put on his suit and prepared to leave for the funeral, he took a long look in the mirror. His eyes were red ad his face looked tired and old, and he knew he was somewhere on the wrong side of a spiral. Yesterday he had spent nearly the entire day writing the obituary for Stephanie and Kim, and the experience had been incredibly draining in every sense of the word.

Arriving at the church, he found himself in the position of accepting condolences from a number of people, and he reminded himself to try and keep it together, at least for the next couple of hours. He found himself craving a drink, but quickly swatted this suggestion away as he remembered that his girls deserved the best of him, at least for another hour or so. After that he would be on his own.

Several people went up to the lectern to talk before John got his chance. Former students of Stephanie’s who discussed how much her classes had affected their lives. A teacher of Kim’s spoke eloquently about how powerful her transformation had been in the classroom since she had found her new family and friends, and John tried hard to give these people his full attention. They were saying things he already knew. That two women had walked the earth who were spectacular, amazing, talented, and irreplaceable. Two women who were now gone.

When it came time for John to speak, he felt a surge of emotion overwhelm him, and he began to cry. He felt like he was literally feeling of all of the pain that was being simultaneously experienced in this room, and the force of this pain for a moment physically overwhelmed him. He realized this might be the most difficult thing he had ever had to do.

“Emily Dickinson said, That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet, John began. “It’s something I’ve thought a lot about over the last couple of days. The nature of time and our short stays here on this planet. Ultimately it’s not really how long we get, but how much of this time is spent really living, and I can say, completely and unequivocally, that my time with Stephanie and Kim was this kind of sacred time. We didn’t get to have much of it, but what we did have went beyond happiness for me. For a few fleeting moments, I got to know what pure, unadulterated joy felt like. And now I am left to think about how I can proceed without it.

Part of what brings me solace is thinking about how much of this joy will ripple into the universe now that they are gone. In the midst of crushing and overwhelming sadness, this is the one thought that has kept me going over the last couple of days. I maintain hope, that maybe this joy these women brought into the universe will one day show reveal itself to me again. Perhaps their love was that strong.

Selfishly, and to be completely honest with you, I have thought a great deal about how I am possibly going to go on without these two women in my life. In the wee small hours last night as I was thinking about this, I heard these words from the song “Ripple” by The Grateful Dead.”
There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

I thought about this as I now wander into a very dark night alone. My suspicion is that the love I had, albeit so tantalizing brief, will one day rise back up inside of me, and allow me to see the light again. To honor and nurture the wonderful light these two wonderful women brought to the world, I have to believe that I may somehow must find a way to share their light and enhance the immortality they brought to the world.

In beginning this task, I will think about our story together. How three lost and broken souls like we were, somehow, and against very long odds, found our way to each other. When I first met Kim she was lonely and angry and scared. I took a big chance getting involved in her life and making her my daughter, thinking I was somehow going to save her. But in the end, it was her that saved me. That’s one life lesson I will certainly draw on from her, how powerful and healing it is to be needed by someone. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you my sweet girl.

And to my beautiful wife Stephanie, I think back on our time together, and one of the first books we ever read together from Carlos Castaneda, “The Teaching of Don Juan.” He asks, before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? That phrase has been in my head from the first moment I laid eyes on her, as she not only had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever known, but was also the only one who ever made my own heart come alive. When I met her I thought that part of my life, the part that needed to use a heart, was over. Yet somehow, someway, this beautiful woman saw something in me, and made me a whole person again. That was what she did. She was a giver of life, and, for however fleeting a moment, she gave me the only real life I have ever known.

Looking at all of you out there, I am reminded how many lives these two ladies truly touched. I can only hope all of you, like me, will try and “pay it forward” when it comes to sharing the love these two brought into the world during there short stay here. I know that will be my challenge as well. To somehow fill the emptiness and loss with what is left behind. The memories and ripples of their incredible spirits.

Chapter 5

He continued to wander through the crowds, which had already thinned considerably from the peak season of the summer. He looked back at the city behind him and took in the giant skyscrapers in the sky All those lives and all of those people moving bustling with life’s little errands. Winter was coming, John thought to himself. Both seasonally as well as emotionally.

He snaked his way back to the Beer Garden and ordered a drink, and then another, and then another. He found a seat next to the water and looked out at an angry looking Lake Michigan. It was a windy day and the waves were unusually large for this time of year. As John looked down on the water, it suddenly crossed his mind that he should just jump in. Why not?

These thoughts passed for the moment, but John thought a little more about the question. Camus had talked about how suicide was life’s most important philosophical question. If life is full of suffering and misery, why do we stick around here? John had always thought the answer to the question was that we made relationships along the way that made the journey at the least bearable, and at the most even joyful. This was a fine answer until the people you were sharing the journey with were gone. Then what do you do?

He had a couple of more beers and began the walk back, thinking of he did as the people that counted on him as a psychologist, and how they might feel if he was gone, especially at his own hand. One thing he knew, was that it was very hard to estimate your worth to others when you were unable to see this worth in yourself. He knew he was at least a competent therapist, and that people had benefited from his experience, but for right now he felt like he was a man without a heart, and he couldn’t see what good such a man would be to anybody.

As he walked he couldn’t think about much else besides having another drink. He decided he wasn’t ready to leave this mortal coil, but also not ready to be alone with his thoughts either. He wandered though Lincoln Park and found a nondescript bar with the “Old Style” sign on the door and went inside. He wanted to disappear for a while, and Chicago had many such spots for just this kind of thing.

After ordering a Makers Mark neat, he wandered back to the old-fashioned jukebox and put a five inside. He had always had a playlist for the most melancholy moments of his life, and now he flipped through until he found Bob Seger, and in particular the song “still the same.” It had always conjured up a strong set of feelings, and now as he listened to it he thought about the song and its possible relevance to his own life. Here he sat in a dingy bar surrounded by strangers he didn’t know drowning his sorrows. After all these years. Still the same.

He followed that selection with “turn the page” and “against the wind” and settled into a familiar feeling of sadness and content. He had operated at this altitude for many years before he had met Stephanie and Kim, and somehow the familiarity of this feeling was oddly soothing to him.

After a while he simply lost all sense of time and place. Chicago has many such places inside its depths. Places that are dark and unassuming, and where a man can wander inside and away from his life into an entirely different kind of world. John was surprised to find that it was dark when he finally did stagger outside, and he decided that it was probably not a good idea to continue to walk in the condition that he was in. However small it was, the survival instinct still was faintly alive inside of him.

On the long cab ride home down the lake, he was again filled with the sense of dread about the things he had to do over the next couple of days. He someway and somehow had to think of some words to describe the things he had lost, and put them into some kind of coherent speech. It was a daunting task.

Chapter 4

After a night spent making phone calls, John looked up and saw that it was already noon. Having abstained from alcohol for so long, he had forgotten about how the next day felt, and made a note to call the patients that were expecting him and reschedule, perhaps indefinitely. These would be difficult calls to make, and he reminded himself that these were people who had placed their trust in him to guide them through their own troubles. He tried to think and formulate a plan, but found his head simply would not cooperate. He didn’t miss feeling like this.

He reminded himself again that alcohol was a luxury he could not afford for the next couple of days, as he still had to keep up appearances, and more importantly, find some kind of words to say that might help make sense of what had happened. He didn’t relish the task, as he felt quite sure that no such words existed. He could wax poetic, and draw on years of rehearsed words meant to comfort and console, but deep down he knew they would be a lie.

He got out of bed and made some extra strong coffee, and began to write down some of the things he had to do over the next couple of days. He knew he would not be the only one in pain, and a part of him drew on the idea that others would be counting on him to be a source of strength. Still, he knew that he would be an imposter in this role, as the only things that ever made him truly feel real were no longer here.

After making his call, he threw on an old pair of corduroy pants and a sweater, and began walking towards the lake, something that has always brought him comfort. Evanston in the fall is a beautiful place, as the old trees begin to change in color and reflect these new colors against the backdrop of the lake behind it. He stopped often as he walked, thinking as he did about am old poem “footprints” from his childhood about Jesus carrying someone when they were going through a particularly difficult time. He was not a religious man, and had always found the poem a little silly, even as a young child. Now he thought he would give anything to feel that kind of comfort, as he had never felt more alone in his entire life. He wondered if he would ever find anything to believe in again.

He walked mile after mile down Lake Michigan, taking in the city he did and thinking about how each neighborhood had a little piece of his own personal history locked inside of them somewhere. Still, each step came with a corresponding bit of pain, as he thought about places he and his family had shared together. There was Moody’s in the Edgewater neighborhood, where they had shared some of their first dates together and had spent hour after hour in conversation. He passed through Wrigleyville and thought about going to Cubs games and street festivals, and all of the crazy times they had there as well.

When he finally got to Navy Pier he had been walking for miles. He walked back to the Beer Garden in the back, passing as he did all of the happy families walking along the boardwalk who were taking in the city. He felt a terrible, physical pang of loss, and quickly went to the nearest vendor and ordered himself a drink. It was his most primitive and dangerous response to pin, but right at this moment she couldn’t think of any better way.

Chapter 3

When it came time to identify his wife, he saw the scratches on her arms and hands, and was told by the doctor that she likely got them trying to protect Kim right up to the end. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest, and for a brief moment he thought about how she had once told him she never felt like she was cut out to be a mother. She was the fiercest protector he had even seen, and being with Kim had awakened a part of her that was at the same time so strong yet so vulnerable, that it had been truly awe-inspiring to observe. He was continually amazed by their love for one another.

As he looked down at her lifeless body, he reached down and put his hand on her face, remembering as he did the first time he had ever done this as she lay quietly sleeping beside him the very first night that they had met. He thought about how much he was looking forward to watching this face change over the years. How it might have changed as laugh lines and wrinkles and life’s travails continued to add to its character. He would only touch it again in his imagination now, and he held his hand to her face for as long as he could possibly could, before the doctor came and gently led him out of the room.

He walked down to the edge of Lake Michigan to a place he used to walk with Stephanie when they first met, and watched the lights of Chicago, thinking about the lives that were going on somewhere behind the lights. He wanted to tell them to take some time and look at the people they loved very closely, because life could intervene any goddamn time it wanted and take it all away. In some terrifying and completely random way, the predator could find a perfectly happy family and snuff them out without any kind of rhyme or reason.

Back in his car, he took the bottle back out of the glove compartment and had another swig. As he did, he reminded himself that he had to keep it together for at least a couple of more days before surrendering completing to his destructive impulses, even if that was the road he chose to go down. He had phone calls to make and arrangements to make, and he knew he owed it to the girls to do it properly. He put the bottle away and began driving very slowly to his empty home. Knowing it was a home that would never be the same again.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

As he drove himself down to the morgue to identify his wife and daughter, he thought about who he could call for some kind of help. Dr. Paul came immediately to mind, but he was of course gone, having taught John all of the lessons he had to give before finally succumbing to his cancer. After Dr. Paul it had been his wife and daughter. Those were the people in his life.

As he approached St. Joseph’s hospital on Lake Shore Drive, he pulled into a quiet wooded area, and took a long look in the mirror, knowing he had nowhere near the strength it required to do this thing he needed to do. He reached into the glove compartment and took out a bottle of whiskey he had picked up at a 7-11 on the way down. Opening it up, he took a long hard swig out of the bottle, and felt a pang of terrible searing regret. He knew he was going down a very dark road, perhaps even one without a way to get back. Still, he needed to feel something different. Anything, and for now, the devil he knew was better than all the other alternatives.

John finished half of the bottle he had purchased before working up the courage to go and see his wife and daughter, but was still feeling very numb, and unaware of his surroundings. The attending doctor informed him it had been a car accident on the drive, and how they had both sustained head trauma, and were likely killed almost instantly. John listened to the words like he was hearing a story about someone else’s life, but managed to nod and ask questions at the right times, strictly out of some kind of reflex. He recognized the sings of trauma he was experiencing, but was unable to take any meaningful steps to take himself out of the daze.

When the doctor pulled the sheet away from his daughter, he was stunned to see how pristine she looked. There were no obvious signs of the trauma, and all that remained was some kind of ghostly angelic-looking creature completely intact except for the life force that had been growing strong inside her.

In an instant their journey together flashed through his eyes. First their time together as doctor and patient, and then, after much resistance and struggle, as father and daughter. She was the only child he had ever ben able to call his own, and now she was gone. He had given her everything he knew how to give, but still, it hadn’t been enough, and he couldn’t help but think that without his involvement in her life, she would at the very least still be alive.

Chapter 1

You'll Never Be Going Back Home


Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee
Her long hair black as a raven
Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me
You'll never be going back home

Tom Waits- Rain Dogs

Chapter 1

John poured a tall cup of coffee and took a long look around. It had been a successful day, and he wanted to savor the moment, because he knew that it often went the other way as well. He looked over and noticed the blinking light going off on his phone, and decided it could wait. Although he was a psychologist and technically always on call, he also knew that people were often tougher than they gave themselves credit for. He took a long swig of his coffee and began to gather his things He hadn’t had a drink stronger than coffee in nearly a year, and slowly, and finally, he was learning another way to live.

He finished the rest of his coffee and turned off the lights, thinking as he did of bringing home dinner for his wonderful wife Stephanie and his beautiful daughter Kim, the two primary reasons for the new man he had become. He thought about picking up a pizza on his way home for them, and remembered that this was their girl’s night where he was left to fend for himself. He looked over at the bar across the street and thought for just a moment of going in. From a great deal of long, hard trial and error, he recognized the urge as a symptom of feelings of abandonment he felt, knowing his girls were having fun without him. He chuckled to himself and decided he would pick up a sandwich at Subway on the way home.

Driving home he thought about all of the events of the past year, and how much his life had changed since he last sat and contemplated his destiny. He had gotten married to a woman he considered his absolute and unequivocal soulmate, a concept he thought was silly until he had met his wife about a year earlier. They had adopted a daughter, who had solidified for them what was already a wonderful dream come true. For the first time in his life, and after much dust that had finally settled, he was truly and completely happy.

As he wound down Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, he took a look at the lake and thought about how much he was looking forward to the fall. It was early September and it was his favorite time of the year in the Windy City, as things finally cooled off a little bit, and the city became a wonderful place to be again. He thought about taking his girls up to Lake Geneva to see some of the fall colors and made a note to book a room at The Abbey Resort, which was a beautiful place along the lake he had been going to for years. He decided it would be a real pleasure to share a place like this after so many years of going there alone.

He continued his way into Evanston, where he now lived in the former home of his greatest friend and mentor Dr. Paul, who had passed away the year before. He and his family lived here during the school year, and also spent considerable time on John’s old family farm, which he had purchased as a place for he and his girls to spend some time away from the city. They had spent nearly two months there over the summer, and the long walks, sunsets, and time spent talking round the fire had been some of the best of his life.

As he pulled into his driveway, he noticed that the girls were still gone which came as a bit of a surprise given the fact that it was now getting dark. He pulled out his cell phone and noticed he had missed a number of messages, but also that they were from a number he didn’t recognize. It was then he got the feeling in his stomach, and he knew that something was horribly and terribly wrong. He could feel it, and his feelings were very seldom wrong. He began shaking as he tried to keep his phone steady as he slowly returned the call. The call that would tell him the worst thing any man could possibly want to hear about his wife and daughter.