But I knew I would get through it.
And suddenly my therapist and I were having our last session.
Just before the hour was up, he said, “For the sake of closure, maybe you could tell me what this experience has been for you.”
I wasn’t prepared for the question, but I had so much faith by then. I said when I felt like I was disappearing, he saw me. When I told him what was true for me, he believed it. “I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”
He gazed out the window and steepled his hands under his chin, gathering himself. Then he looked at me. “I know this is unusual,” he said, “but I’d like to tell you what the experience has been for me.”
I knew he was asking my permission. With no idea what he would say, I nodded.
“I am the child of an affair my mother had with a man she loved and left her husband for,” he said. “She had three children, but she never saw them again. I lived with her grief, and her guilt, all my life. She never forgave herself.”
I felt my chest sink. Nothing could have prepared me.
“I’ve tried so hard to be your advocate. I want you to have the happiness you deserve,” he said with a wistful smile. “But the whole time we’ve been in therapy about this, I’ve been in therapy about you.”
I looked out the window too, trying to take it in.
My story had reawakened the hurt he had carried — the tragedy of his mother, who had chosen her own happiness and suffered for it the rest of her life. But rather than turn away, he had stayed with me. He had used it to grow as a human being, the very thing he had encouraged me to do.
