ABSTRACT
We sit in silence in the small rectangle of a room. Outside, the January deep freeze has covered everything, blanketing the world in white and winter gray. Inside, the four men and two women sit, brought together under the therapeutic theme of loss and recovery. The newcomer starts by saying that it is too much to talk about his losses. He goes on to mention a loss of placement in a program he had enjoyed for years. He then speaks of an extremely debilitating physical disease that will most assuredly lead to an early death. I can’t tell his age. He may be twenty-eight or thirty. In any case, he is young. The person to his right, a teenager grown much too wise and weighed down for his young years says, “I can identify.” He speaks of his physical problem, which may also lead to a very early death if something can’t be done. In any case, he must change his lifestyle. The woman comes in so softly that I have to lean closer, even though I am sitting right next to her. She talks of a childhood disease that seems to have left a residue that returns in a mild form, under stress, and is aggravated when she is depressed. The room is silent, so silent that I imagine that the outside cold has oozed through the walls and left its grayness settled over all. I ask the forth person if he has had any similar experiences. “Oh, yes,” he declares with heaviness of tone and words. Again we sink into silence. This time, the silence seems like a completed circle that binds us in our humanity, and in so doing, we do not rush to push it away.
