Today, I’m returning to stories from my clinical practice. This is about an experience that touched me deeply; and it speaks to the power of letting go of even the most important things.
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I had known Artie for a long time, first helping him get over his jitters about marriage to a woman he had long loved, then supporting his efforts to build a restaurant, and finally teaching him how to feel at ease with his new baby. As his son entered adolescence, though, Artie found himself irritated by the boy’s “antics.” Well, more than irritated. He was mad and began to distance himself from what he had called “this precious creature.”
As the distance grew, Artie remembered something I had said years before: “As a father, you’ll have a chance to replay and redeem yourself and the disastrous relationship you have with your father.” Back then, Artie had found that thought comforting. And, when it didn’t happen, when he thought he was enroute to playing out the same angry attitudes and abusive behaviors his father had visited upon him as a boy, he felt that, instead of redemption, he was becoming his father.
So, Artie came to see me again. I was an alternative and kinder father than his own. Early in our conversation, I wondered if, as an adult, he had gotten any closer to his father. “No, not even a little bit. He’s still the same old bastard he’s always been. Even now that I do so many of the things he had predicted I’d never be capable of—marriage, business success, a home of my own—even now, he’s hardly speaking to me. It was as if my proving him wrong made him angrier. We have almost nothing to do with one another.”
Instead of talking about his father, though, I urged Artie to bring him into therapy. Partly, I wanted to see for myself just how unreachable and unreasonable Sam was; partly I thought, pridefully, that I’d be able to bring them together.
“That,” according to Artie, was “a ridiculous idea.: First, Sam wouldn’t come. Second, Sam “would just be obnoxious and I don’t need another direct dose of his shit.” Third, Artie didn’t want his father invading what had become almost sacred ground for him. Having anxiously challenged me, Artie looked at me in a half challenging, half pleading way, as if to say “Don’t make me do this.”
But, contrarian as I often was, I insisted; and I had built enough trust in Artie that he conceded with very little fight.
To Artie’s surprise, Sam readily agreed to meet with us. As it turns out, he wanted an opportunity to “state his case.” And he took almost the entire hour to do so. He berated Artie a bit, as if showing off to me. But mostly he wanted me—not Artie—to understand how difficult life had been for him. In fact, he seemed delighted to have this opportunity. “I could come back again,” he told me. More importantly, every time I tried to turn him toward his son, to get a conversation going between them, he more or less ignored me—and Artie—and went on with his monologue. It was as though Artie wasn’t there. That was the most powerful impression he left with me.
The next week, Artie eagerly entered my office: “See! He’s just a bastard and he doesn’t care about me. It was worthless bringing him to see you.”
At first, I agreed with Artie and regretted bringing Sam to therapy. But the more I thought about it, the clearer I shifted to another view: Artie had spent a lifetime hoping his father would eventually love him. In some way, that hope, itself, had prevented him from moving along with his life. It was, as though, he couldn’t completely commit to his own family if his father wouldn’t accept and love him. As though he wouldn’t be complete enough, in himself, to be a father or even a husband. So, I came to the next meeting with the idea of helping Artie to accept, to deeply accept his loss.
As Artie ranted about his father’s betrayal in last week’s therapy session, I was pretty sure that he expected me to fight him, to balance his pessimism with some optimism—and, maybe magic—of my own, and to develop strategies to reach Sam.
But I didn’t. I simply agreed with Artie: “He doesn’t seem to care about you—or about anyone other than himself.” Artie was both relieved and frightened by my confirmation. He didn’t really want me to agree with him. If we agreed, it might mean that he couldn’t expect anything from his father, even now. “That’s right,” I said. “I don’t think you can. You have to find some way to let go of that hope.”
“You might have to give up the idea of ever having a father.”
That was a shocking thing to say. I could see it on Artie’s face. And I was tempted to soften my stand, but I didn’t. I had come to believe that Artie’s best chance of freeing himself from his father’s rejections and negligence was to let him go. We spent most of the hour imagining what that would feel like, what it would look like. Would he simply refuse to go home, even for family holidays? Refuse to call? Act as though he had no father?
Over the next several weeks, that’s what we talked about. Whenever Artie suggested we talk about ways to get a little closer or to get even, I refused. After a while, Artie joined me. When he did, he grew sadder and sadder. Tears finally came, sometimes for sustained periods. He couldn’t work in a steady way. He felt distant from his son and from his wife, as though losing his father meant he was incapable of loving anyone.
But eventually, Artie came to accept his loss and his appetite for work and family returned. He rediscovered a tenderness for his son. And a few months later, Artie sent me a gift for the father he had never had.
That, of course, was a wonderful story, as rewarding as any therapist has any right to receive. But it wasn’t the end. A few years later, Artie called and asked to see me again. This time, he had no troubles to report. He simply wanted to share a development with me.
His father was dying, spending long days alone in his hospital bed. But not entirely alone. Artie frequently came to visit. They didn’t talk. They didn’t try to rewrite the past. They watched Red Sox baseball games together—holding hands.
Barry Dym 