De Profundis
By Lev Raphael
Douglas was relieved when his dead parents came to stay after his car accident left him with a concussion. He knew they were dead, of course, and that made their visit even more special.
“Think of what it took them to get here,” he told June, his therapist, who nodded sagely and made some notes. “That’s love!”
June was gratifyingly a lot older than him, curly-haired and warm, with an office of cozy furniture in soothing tones of blue; the fat-armed chair for patients enfolded him like a hug. Soft lighting in the room with a view of stately hemlocks soothed him on cloudy winter days when, like now, it was already dark outside.
Poetry and psychology books were neatly arrayed on a leaning ladder bookcase, and bright Matisse reproductions hung on every wall. His favorite piece, though, was the small, antique-looking needlepoint with Julian of Norwich’s “All shall be well” prayer.
“How does it feel to see them again?” June asked gently.
“Wonderful.”
Douglas thought back to the crash, his memories painfully vivid. He recalled the ER doctor urging him to take it easy for three weeks. That wasn’t hard because he was no longer working. He could order food in, skip regular exercise at the gym, though it would be hard to give up his daily walk through his subdivision along streets lined with majestic maples and oaks. The doctor okayed his weekly therapy sessions; he just couldn’t drive himself there.
When he took an Uber home from the ER the night of that accident, his parents were waiting.
Recovery was a dream: his mother read to him from his favorite childhood book, The Three Musketeers, and his father made grilled cheese sandwiches with Jarlsberg. At night they all prayed the Rosary together and his parents called him Cookie, the nickname that had always felt like a hug.
It was as if he had never grown up, never left home, never been divorced, never lost his two best friends to cancer, never had Covid, never been forced into early retirement from his small private college because of downsizing, never had his car slide off a rain-slick highway into a grassy median and hit a tree. None of that had happened.
The ER doctor had warned him of possible delayed reactions to his mild TBI, including something rare: psychosis. And so he hadn’t told any friends about his visitors because he didn’t want them to think he was crazy.
Here, in this warm and comforting space, he felt safe telling June about his parents because he always felt safe in her office. It was his oasis.
“I thought they were gone forever,” he said.
“You’re very lucky,” June said, “to have them with you. It’s a blessing.”
Douglas smiled broadly. She couldn’t have said anything better.
Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery. See his website at https://www.levraphael.com/ and follow him on https://levraphael.substack
