IMy long-time therapist passed away in September. I hadn’t seen her in a professional capacity for years, but I came across her at our local pathology clinic and knew immediately that she was ill. I could see the shadow of death floating. I waited for her to talk about it – this disease – but she didn’t.
For months afterward, I worried about her, wondering how she was doing, wondering if I would be told when the end was near, and wondering if I should try to say goodbye.
I sent an email, but the response I received was brisk. Her health was not discussed.
Some time later she came to me in a dream. It felt like a visit. She was golden in color, radiated light and she was young, younger than I had ever known her. In the dream I was on some kind of quest, the details are now hazy, and my therapist – this beautiful golden vision – accompanied me and whispered insights into my ear. She was playful, witty and lively. I was enchanted by her.
When I woke up, I panicked. Had she died? How do you find out if your old therapist, the most private of all practitioners, is dead? I googled. It was nothing. I searched the obituaries section of our local newspaper. Again, nothing. Go to the source, I thought, and I emailed her about my dream.
Within hours she wrote back: “I believe that every feature, person or detail in the dreamscape represents an aspect of the dreamer, so I’m wondering what ‘me’ or ‘adventure’ or ‘glowing light’ etc. represents of you ?”
She lives! I laughed and relief flooded my chest. But – as always – that therapist flip. The spotlight turned from her to me.
I had come into Varda’s orbit twenty years earlier. I was suffering from monstrous headaches and a friend had suggested the Alexander Technique, which aims to improve posture. I was desperate. It was pre-internet. I looked up Alexander technicians in the Yellow Pages and there was a practitioner in the next valley. I live in the sticks. “That’s very close,” I thought.
I arrived at the indicated address. It was different than I expected. There was Varda, small, with her platform wedges and her piercing blue eyes, in a long, wooden-floored studio at the end of a bumpy dirt road. I was in my mid-twenties, a newly single mother with unbearable headaches and a backstory so sad no one could hear it. She lured me to her table and tried to help my body release some of the strange tension it was holding. There was no massage, but the gentle lifting of the limbs with some verbal instructions – “The neck lets go of the head, forward and upward…” A new lightness entered my body.
At the end we had a small debriefing opposite each other. Varda told me that pain in the body was often linked to emotional experiences. She told me she was a trained counselor. She asked me if there was anything in my life that I would like to share.
Until that moment, the events in my life seemed too big to speak out loud. There was no situation or space that could contain the words.
“No one likes to hear about that,” I said. “It’s way too intense.”
“That’s no problem for me,” Varda replied. “I like it intense.” And she reached out and gently touched my knee.
My world changed in that moment. From invisible to seen. From pain and contraction to the entire spectrum of feelings.
After this appointment I went back every two weeks. Varda always chose her words carefully, each with a specific meaning. Intelligence buzzed in the air around her. When she said, “Try writing some things down,” I listened.
“I’d like to read what you write,” she said more than once. It was hard to imagine sharing my words with anyone else, but when I gathered enough courage, I left her a story to read after one of our sessions.
When I got home she called me. “Normally I wouldn’t do this,” she said. “Call you without prior appointment.”
I wondered what was wrong.
“It’s just…I read the story and…I think…I think it’s something.”
I was astounded. This reaction was beyond my imagination.
“I’m no expert,” she continued, “but I believe your writing is of a publishable standard.”
“Real?”
“Jessie, I think you’re a writer.”
If you crossed paths with Varda in that remote studio, your life would take a new direction. A second birth, a second life. Before Varda and after Varda. She showed us who we could really be.
Finally, the news came via text message that Varda would be going to hospice. “Please know that you are all treasures that I will carry for eternity,” she texted. How can you talk about the therapeutic bond without talking about love? This extraordinary pact, this amazing community. I thought of the many kind invitations Varda had sent.
I will see you.
I’ll hear you.
I’ll hold you.
I’m not afraid of you.
I like intense.
I love you.
I texted back, trying to capture the depth of my gratitude.
“So mutual,” she replied.
Maverick healer, gifted musician, sensitive wordsmith, crazy tennis enthusiast, devoted beach walker, mother, sister, therapist, friend. Varda, how we loved you.
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Jesse Cole is the author of four books, including the memoirs Staying and Desire, A Reckoning