TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: That was out in the hallway?

CLIENT: My hallway. I had glasses; what did I do with them? Oh, I've even got a dime. Anyway, now I can see.

THERAPIST: There you go.

CLIENT: There it is. Isn't it funny? I can't read with my glasses on. I can't work on the computer with my glasses on, and they are bifocals.

THERAPIST: They are bifocals?

CLIENT: Yeah. No-line bifocals.

THERAPIST: Are they just too weak now at this point?

CLIENT: No. I never could read with them on.

THERAPIST: Is that right? Well, you might be better is it clear when you don't use them?

CLIENT: Yeah. I can see it much better like this way; but with the reading no. It gives me a headache. [00:01:02]

THERAPIST: If you're reading?

CLIENT: Yeah. The words seem blurry. Don't ask me why.

THERAPIST: And even with the bifocal lens correction?

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe because I don't use them right. I don't know. I have the lens with the lines forget that.

THERAPIST: So that's an invisible line?

CLIENT: On these glasses here, yeah.

THERAPIST: How about that?

CLIENT: Did you get a new car?

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: Because there's a nice silver car down there out front with a convertible top.

THERAPIST: (laughs) No, no, it's not me.

CLIENT: I said, "Oh, okay. He bought a new car and didn't tell me."

THERAPIST: High-flying, huh?

CLIENT: Well I junked my car, so that's the end of that.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right.

CLIENT: I had to give up my parking space that was right close to my apartment and some elderly lady, 95 years old, that's still fucking driving, got my space. [00:02:11]

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah, so. I'm thinking of writing to the Ellen Degeneres Show. Generally friends write and your kids write and they say, "My mother's car broke down and she uses it for all kinds of doctors' appointments." I said, "Since Deborah won't do it I might as well send in my name and write myself a letter." (laughs) And show her all my doctors' appointments that I need to go to every week.

THERAPIST: See the entire list? Oh, yeah. And, you know, the list shouldn't stop there because then you've got not only the appointments you bring yourself to, but others do and the taxi service you basically do. [00:02:57]

CLIENT: And if I ask my cousin I have to pay her $15 a ride.

THERAPIST: That would maybe be the clincher for the letter, "My cousin will take me but she charges me $15 a ride."

CLIENT: Oh she'd love hearing that on TV. (laughs)

THERAPIST: That would be pretty good. Where did you get the car from?

CLIENT: My mother bought it for me.

THERAPIST: Is that right? Okay. You've had it since we've been meeting, right?

CLIENT: I've had it for a while. It was a 1995 and I think I bought it when it was two years old maybe. It had low mileage and only one driver.

THERAPIST: So she bought it for you used?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It lasted you a long time. [00:03:58]

CLIENT: Yeah, it worked fine until I would let Todd take it and, you know...

THERAPIST: Two accidents.

CLIENT: Two accidents. Me having one accident and, let's see, I've been driving since I was 17. That's a long time. I never had an accident, then I had one accident and his, too, and my insurance went up. I was paying $60 a month and it went up to $160 a month, which I couldn't afford. I couldn't afford to get it fixed. It flunked twice on the inspection sticker, so the third time it flunked that was the end of it anyways; but I couldn't afford to get it fixed and then I couldn't afford to pay the insurance. [00:05:04] Deborah tried to insure it in her name but where she had "does not pay child support" they revoked her license, even though she never had one.

THERAPIST: You've got to have a license to have an insurance policy in your name.

CLIENT: No. You don't need a license.

THERAPIST: Oh, you don't?

CLIENT: No. But where she wrote "child support," they revoked her license.

THERAPIST: So she had a revoked license? So you can't get a policy if you have a revoked license?

CLIENT: Yeah. Because of all that child support, which I told her time and time again go to the court. You tell them that you're not working, that you haven't been able to work; so she's finally getting to go see the psychiatrist tomorrow night and he's the one that's supposed to fill in these papers that she's been suffering this from 2005. [00:06:09] She'll be able to get...

THERAPIST: SSDI?

CLIENT: Yeah, eventually she can get that, but every month she can get $300 from welfare. They give her $150 first and then another $150 in the middle until her SSI kicks in. I said, "Then you take it over to the courthouse, Deborah. You have to do something." I mean $100 I forget how much she owes. She's supposed to pay $50 a week, I think. Or maybe $50 a month. I don't know. I can go back from when Heath moved down to Florida. I have all my old checks that I sent to him for Darla: $1,000, $500, 600. He never claimed any of that and reported it. [00:07:29]

THERAPIST: Assistance, yeah.

CLIENT: Because every check that I wrote out I put on it "Memo: Darla," "Darla," "Darla."

THERAPIST: You've actually sent quite a bit of money.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. I can go back. It's like close to $7,000 that I've sent down for Darla, for plane fares, for her birthday, for Robintmas. Oh, yeah. I've been sending her spending money each month. It might only be $25, but I've been sending her that. Then on her birthday she got another $100. You know things like that. Robintmas she'll get another couple hundred. It adds up. [00:08:37]

THERAPIST: It's a lot of support.

CLIENT: Yeah. So I've got quite a few paper works. I figured I'll wait and see what happens after the Holidays and then I'll see if I can get a lawyer.

THERAPIST: What have you heard about her coming up here for the Holidays?

CLIENT: She didn't write me over the weekend, but I did write her and told her to tell her father to book tickets now and I will send them the money.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's getting six weeks.

CLIENT: Yeah. As I said, I even checked this morning and she still didn't write me back. Generally she writes me back on the weekend. But she wants to come from the day school gets out down there until after New Year. [00:09:48]

THERAPIST: Boy, as you were getting into last time, it's been so long since you've even seen her.

CLIENT: I can just imagine how much she's changed. I haven't seen her for Robintmas quite a few years. I haven't had a birthday with her since she was, I think, six. Deborah hasn't spent any, you know? It's getting to me. [00:10:40]

THERAPIST: You've got such little control over it, it's hard. Do you have some pictures?

CLIENT: Yeah, my mother. Next month is the time of the year that she passed away.

THERAPIST: When is her birthday?

CLIENT: November 10th.

THERAPIST: It's all at the same time

CLIENT: I've been getting so sentimental.

THERAPIST: Yeah? Tell me. What have you been thinking? What's been on your mind with her?

CLIENT: How much I miss her. Not only was she my mother, she was my best friend. We saw each other two to five times a week. That's my mother and father. How lovey-dovey. I mean, it was sickening. He'd call her you know, all these names. This was out in our backyard. [00:11:57]

THERAPIST: She liked to sunbathe out there? Smoke cigarettes? Was she a smoker?

CLIENT: Yes, she was.

THERAPIST: She's on the beach? How about that?

CLIENT: My mother had a body. Mickie's friends would drool over my mother.

THERAPIST: She was very attractive?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Mickie?

CLIENT: That was the two of them. I think that was ‘63.

THERAPIST: ‘62, January ‘62. This is ‘67, so what was going on then? Where was this taken? [00:12:58]

CLIENT: At our house.

THERAPIST: This one, too?

CLIENT: No, that was up at our summer house. That was our dog that we had to give to the police department.

THERAPIST: Why?

CLIENT: Because he attached the mailman. Of course, the mailman hit him with the fucking pouch every time he would come to the door because he was chained to the wrought-iron railing. He finally broke loose with the wrought-iron railing.

THERAPIST: This is at your home, too?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Back yard?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And this one back yard, too?

CLIENT: Yeah. She had the privacy.

THERAPIST: And then when they moved to the apartment she couldn't do it? [00:13:52]

CLIENT: She couldn't do that. Then I did come across a couple of pictures of Mickie's wife, so I'll send him down those pictures.

THERAPIST: What was her name?

CLIENT: Alice. Died the same day as my mother.

THERAPIST: How many years earlier ten?

CLIENT: Oh, no. She's been dead for when Heath was off to boarding school. I forget how many years after that not too long, though. Good old Polaroid cameras, huh?

THERAPIST: So you've been feeling sentimental missing her?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Good old mom. Mom used to smoke Lucky Strikes with no filter.

THERAPIST: No filters? [00:14:52]

CLIENT: I don't know how she did it. Then she gave them up and she would have a craving for sweets, and I mean sweets. We'd go out to breakfast and she'd have bacon and eggs and home fries and toast and a side order of pancakes so she could pour the maple syrup on them.

THERAPIST: I remember your mother. She was a pretty petite woman.

CLIENT: Yes. Oh, yeah, and an appetite like no tomorrow. Then, of course, it didn't help that Rebecca and I decided to go out on Saturday night. I e-mailed her, "Need clams. Need French fries. Need onion rings," she writes back. How about Saturday after I get out of work at 3:00? I said that's fine for me. (laughs) We went shopping a shirt. I went and bought a haircut. I got some bras and then from there we went to get Deborah a roast beef sandwich because she doesn't eat fish. We brought home the rest of the clams, French fries and onion rings that I didn't eat, because I got the ones without the bellies. Rebecca has the ones wit the bellies so what she didn't eat went to my plate and we gave them to my neighbor to eat. (laughs) So everybody got fed. [00:16:55]

THERAPIST: You said it didn't help that you went up there. Why?

CLIENT: My mother and I would be there every week.

THERAPIST: Every week? Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. She had to go up there and get her fried scallops they have the best onion rings, though and her onion rings and French fries. She wouldn't finish the whole thing, so she would take hers home and have another meal with them.

THERAPIST: (laughs) She did that every week?

CLIENT: Yep. Of course, I don't do leftovers, so mine would be going to her plate. I'd take them home to our neighbor. I said, "Rebecca, this is..." She said, "I know, I know."

THERAPIST: What did you say to her?

CLIENT: Rebecca would come with us sometimes. She's another one that loved my mother. My mother was everybody's friend. [00:18:05]

THERAPIST: It's kind of like some form of connecting with your mom to be up there.

CLIENT: Yeah. The only time they're closed is Robintmas Day. I said, "Rebecca, [Var] (sp?) and I came up one day during the week it wasn't even Robintmas and they were closed because they were painting the fucking building. You should have heard my mother swear." (laughs)

THERAPIST: Well it's no small trip, is it?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: That's their saying, right? "Open every day except Robintmas." They should have called. (both laugh)

CLIENT: Any day but Robintmas. They should have sent notices out.

THERAPIST: She comes every week. You should have given her a heads-up. They were going to paint. Just in case.

CLIENT: So we went to this other place and it sucked.

THERAPIST: Oh, Clambox or something like that? [00:19:09]

CLIENT: Something, yeah. It was a little bit fancy. So she was like, "And then to go to Wegman's..." I mean she complained about every fucking thing.

THERAPIST: Wegman's?

CLIENT: At this other place. They had a waitress and all this stuff which, at Wegman's, you grab it yourself.

THERAPIST: She didn't want anything to do with all that?

CLIENT: No. Nope. "Service sucks." Jesus Robint. She was bad. Then the other day what did I do? I bought a loaf of Italian bread and all I could think of was my mother. She would eat the whole loaf of Italian bread with mayonnaise on it.

THERAPIST: Humph. Mayonnaise on it? Where did that come from? [00:20:10]

CLIENT: It came from being locked in the closet when she was younger. She survived on whatever my grandmother could give her.

THERAPIST: Locked in the closet? What was that about?

CLIENT: Evidently my grandfather was an alcoholic and, if my mother didn't bring him a paycheck, she couldn't sit there at the table and eat; so she survived on ketchup sandwiches, mayonnaise sandwiches and mustard.

THERAPIST: And her mother would bring them into the closet?

CLIENT: Yeah, and give them to my mother.

THERAPIST: Was she hiding there in the closet from him?

CLIENT: No, my father would lock her in there.

THERAPIST: He'd lock her?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You said your father? [00:21:03]

CLIENT: Yeah. And I just noticed the other day that my mother's mother died at the age of 55. And when she died, she was living out with her family.

THERAPIST: With her family. With her parents?

CLIENT: No, I think it was a brother or something. I remember my Aunt and my mother going out there in the middle of a snowstorm that was taking on here and went to the funeral. I even have my grandmother's plot number and everything.

THERAPIST: Is she buried in Indiana?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Where? Do you know where? What town?

CLIENT: No. I'll bring it with me the next time.

THERAPIST: What it's near? Okay. [00:22:04]

CLIENT: I had all that stuff listed.

THERAPIST: Did she leave your grandfather?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: She did? How about that. History repeating itself.

CLIENT: Yeah. He was very abusive.

THERAPIST: He was? It sounds like it.

CLIENT: I know my mother didn't have much contact with her brother. He went in the service. I have pictures of him at our house. He was another alcoholic.

THERAPIST: Men and alcohol.

CLIENT: Yeah. I remember him coming here from Germany with a wife, a German girl, and they had a little baby boy. They stayed at our house for like two or three weeks. [00:23:11]

THERAPIST: They immigrated from Germany?

CLIENT: Yeah. He was in the service and he married her over there.

THERAPIST: He was married? He was a serviceman and he was...

CLIENT: You want to see my hand?

THERAPIST: It looks a lot better than it did last week. It's healing fast.

CLIENT: Yeah. Not bad for Deborah taking out the stitches. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Let me see it. It looks like it's just growing new skin. How's the flexibility?

CLIENT: Fine.

THERAPIST: Doesn't feel pain?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: How's the other one?

CLIENT: (laughs)

THERAPIST: Hell?

CLIENT: Yeah, we don't want to use the other one at all because it hurts so bad. Okay, then the latest on Mark. He was on his way over we were outside Friday morning, Deborah, me and Julie, the dog that we baby-sit. Mark was coming walking down with his dog, Jack, when Robin, the maintenance man, was out there and Robin said to him, "Oh, I'm surprised to see you since you're not welcome here." Mark just turned around and left. Haven't heard from him since. [00:24:40]

THERAPIST: When was that?

CLIENT: Friday morning. So I did call him yesterday. "Why did the maintenance man say that to me? That hurt my feelings." "Because I told him that if he kept it up he wasn't going to be allowed in my house." He said, "What, like Mark?" I said, "Yeah. So it wasn't anything. It was just jokingly." "Oh, all right. But you hurt my feelings." I said, "Well it makes up for all the times you hurt my feelings." Monday, the day of the storm, he insisted that he told me that he was going. Thursday they were leaving. Mark was going to some thing, but they never made it. She kept insisting and she had the time off. He took the time off but, no, they never made it. [00:25:57]

THERAPIST: His wife, Deborah, got the time off?

CLIENT: Yeah, his wife. I said, "What are you going? You can't get there -. What are you going to do?" He said, "We'll [P.S] (ph?) up in Maine." Maine? They're doing odd days and even days. They got hit just as bad. You're not going to get to Maine, let alone New York." Sure enough, it was canceled. I guess they were out the $350 for the tickets for Deborah and Keisha to go to this.

THERAPIST: It was some show or something?

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. It was last year and I don't know what it has lights I have no idea what, but it was in New Jersey and they were going to go down so Keisha could go to it. It has something to do with her heart or something. [00:26:57]

THERAPIST: And it was like the week of the hurricane when everything was closed?

CLIENT: Right. But they insisted it was going to be going on.

THERAPIST: Should have listened to you, right?

CLIENT: Never does.

THERAPIST: (chuckles) Never does, is right.

CLIENT: Plus I always prove to be right. He always has the dog with him. It's the only time the dog gets walked. He'll say, "Don't even say it. I know what you're going to say." I'll go, "Okay. You mean like ‘Keisha's not going to watch it? Keisha's not going to take care of it?' ‘It's going to be my dog, Daddy,'" which it is.

THERAPIST: It's what you said, though.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. She's going to walk it every day. She's going to clean up after it. Uh-huh. Okay. That proved to be wrong, too. [00:27:57]

THERAPIST: Like you were just saying, he never listens.

CLIENT: And then Deborah's mother wound up in the hospital. Her aide that comes to help her wash up or something was scrubbing her leg and broke the blood vessels. She couldn't stop bleeding so she was rushed to the hospital and she was in the ICU unit. I said, "Your wife is actually going to leave while her mother is in the hospital? I know she has a brother here. I know she has at least one sister here and she's going to feel that it's okay to leave those two and not be there herself?" It kind of reminds me of my brother when my mother was in the nursing home. I was there every day, every day; the day she died. I said, "Another one." I said, "If she's going to leave, I came to find out Mark." [00:29:15]

THERAPIST: What about that? What does all that mean to you?

CLIENT: It just reminded me of Mickie. "Oh, I'll be there. I'll be there." By the time he got there my mother was already dead.

THERAPIST: It sounds like it's some kind of sign of character to you about that. What is it? Tell me?

CLIENT: I feel like my father never appreciated my mother. It was all right to dump her because Louise was going to be there 24/7, you know? Like, "Let's not move." You got this recording going?

THERAPIST: Yes. (chuckles) Why? What were you thinking?

CLIENT: I just thought it wasn't working. I mean it bothered me.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah. I remember that.

CLIENT: He drove up from and he hit storms and all this stuff and I called him to let him know my mother died. I don't know how far out he was, but you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that he could, as you say, dump her like that.

CLIENT: Because Louise was going to be there.

THERAPIST: Because you were going to be there. [00:30:50]

CLIENT: It's bad enough when my sister-in-law died, she died in my arms. My mother...

THERAPIST: Alice?

CLIENT: Yep, because he was coming home that night. My father, Lola and I went in to the hospital. Was it Lola? I think it was Lola. Mickie was leaving because he was exhausted. He had been there all day. Alice's sisters couldn't stay because they couldn't handle it any more so we went in the room. Lola and my father said what they had to say to her and I was going to stay the night. They had even brought in a bed for me to sleep in next to Alice. No sooner than everyone left, I talked with her, told her those things that you know went on and said it was all right to let go. She didn't need to suffer anymore, and she died in my arms. It was the same with my mother, being in the room, holding her hand. [00:32:20]

THERAPIST: In the room with her, holding her hand?

CLIENT: Yeah. She would pull the oxygen out of her nose; I'd put it back in. She'd pull it out. She didn't want to live.

THERAPIST: She didn't want to live. She was ready to die. [00:32:45]

CLIENT: It just bothers me.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds like it. It bothers you.

CLIENT: Why can't people handle it? You're there when they're born into the world, why can't you be there when they're leaving the world? It's like hey, Mickie. She gave birth to you. Do you think you could be up here now that she's decided she's ready to die? Nothing could be done because she had a "do not resuscitate." She was ready to go.

THERAPIST: She was ready to go, yeah.

CLIENT: Those, I think, were the two biggest losses in my life Alice and my mother. And it's funny, with Alice. She had five sisters. The father was very strict, very cheap. When Alice had the first child, she made such a big thing out of a rug that her sisters bought her that was like a little floor rug, it just went before the crib. I went and bought the crib, get this and get that; but she made such a big thing about this thing-a-ma-jiggy. (chuckles) Alice was Alice. The first time she cooked a turkey she put it in the oven with the plastic on it frozen. Of course, by the time we got there, it was still frozen but the plastic was all melted. [00:34:56]

THERAPIST: Into the turkey?

CLIENT: Into the turkey. She tried.

THERAPIST: You were close with her?

CLIENT: Yeah. I really was. She was Mickie's sweetheart since the fourth grade.

THERAPIST: Is that right? Wow. So you knew her long before the wedding.

CLIENT: They broke up, he went out with other girls, they went back; but they were always together. She got married on Mickie's birthday. [00:35:53]

THERAPIST: How old were they?

CLIENT: Young. Either 20 or 21; probably both 21.

THERAPIST: And they got married on his birthday?

CLIENT: My father offered to pay for everything but, no, Alice's father was going to pay for it and we had the reception in his house, which wasn't very big. That was good because there wasn't that many people there.

THERAPIST: No?

CLIENT: No. Maybe I shouldn't say that. She had a good-sized wedding between Mickie's friends and Mickie's friends were her friends. Her best friend married Mickie's best man. She was, I think, Alice's maid of honor. And, it's funny, those two are still happily married. It was odd. Then I dated one of the ushers. He passed away maybe five or ten years ago. He came back from Viet Nam without a full deck. He had that what do they call it? PSD? [00:37:25]

THERAPIST: PTSD.

CLIENT: Yeah, PTSD. Bad. (pause) I went to school with a lot of kids that served in the service and a few of them didn't come back from my graduating class. But, hey, what the hell? Mary's still not allowed over to my house. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: What were you just feeling, though, right before you moved to Mary?

CLIENT: I don't know. It was such a stupid war. It really was. I'm not too happy with this war still going on in Afghanistan.

THERAPIST: Today is Veterans Day observed. [00:38:39]

CLIENT: I just, as I say, a lot of guys didn't come back from the class of 1965.

THERAPIST: Oh, God, yeah. I imagine. How did Mickie come back?

CLIENT: Flat feet.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: My father, too, and my uncle, too.

THERAPIST: Flat feet.

CLIENT: And then the inner ear thing. Meniere's disease. He lost his balance and the ringing in his ears was so bad and then the migraines. He wasn't supposed to be riding a motorcycle. [00:39:28]

THERAPIST: I see. The balance and all that.

CLIENT: The same thing I have now.

THERAPIST: Right, right. It's genetic.

CLIENT: I thought I had an appointment with the headache doctor last Friday. I had it in my calendar; I had it in my book. I got a letter last Thursday stating that my appointment was for this Thursday. I called up and said, "I have to cancel Thursday's appointment," because they're only going to take in one place and I had to be in some other clinic at 9:30. I knew I wasn't going to make it, plus I had no ride to get there to the fucking thing. I said, "I had it on my calendar that I was due for an appointment tomorrow." "Oh, he's not here on Fridays." I said, "Then you're going to have to cancel my appointment altogether." "Well, you know, he's not taking anybody for botox injections. He's filled up until March." I said, "Well fucking forget it. What the hell you want from me?" you know? So he's gone. I don't know what's with me with these... [00:40:58]

THERAPIST: The appointments? Yeah. Harder to keep up with them because you put it right in your appointment book.

CLIENT: Right in the appointment book. No one had to give me an appointment for that day, you know? And whether it was changed without me knowing, I don't know. So what's more important,?

THERAPIST: Yeah, then you've got to make a decision who you want to...

CLIENT: I said, "Well, hey. If I get the headaches back I'll have to make another appointment all over again."

THERAPIST: Because they did the botox for that yeah.

CLIENT: And that was on my last set of botox injections.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So they wouldn't reschedule you?

CLIENT: No. He was booked until March. So, fine.

THERAPIST: Play hardball.

CLIENT: Yeah. I can't win. I really can't win.

THERAPIST: What were you going to say about Mary?

CLIENT: She's still not allowed in my place from the bedbugs. Did I tell you don't mind me, I'm going bouncing around that I had bladder cancer? I never knew that. [00:42:24]

THERAPIST: How's that?

CLIENT: I went to see my urologist, who was my doctor for the kidney, and I have a left kidney due to renal cell carcinoma. Then in 2007 I had a small bladder tumor that was considered bladder cancer that he removed.

THERAPIST: But they didn't tell you that?

CLIENT: No. I mean I know they told me that I had a tumor. I know I had that removed, but I didn't know it was considered bladder cancer. Evidently I didn't need any treatment there either. He removed it. Same with the kidney. You know. [00:43:14]

THERAPIST: Did they find it only after they removed it?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: They didn't tell you? Boy oh boy.

CLIENT: Everything must have been fine because I didn't need any radiation, I didn't need any chemo. Past medical history: arthritis, heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, chronic pain, renal cell carcinoma, depression, osteoporosis, bladder cancer, mixed incontinence, restless-leg syndrome, sleep apnea, and a fractured right shoulder. Of course, he doesn't have the legs in there.

THERAPIST: The knee stuff, yeah.

CLIENT: Surgical history: total left-knee replacement, left-knee arthro, appendix, tonsillitis, tubal ligation, bladder sling, the cancer removal, the bladder removal. Wonderful [00:44:27]

THERAPIST: How did they fit it on one page?

CLIENT: (laughs) I don't know. Very small. Very small.

THERAPIST: That must be something to see on a piece of paper in front of you, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah, so I've got to copy this and give it to Dr. Numb-nuts.

THERAPIST: Numb-nuts.

CLIENT: I call everybody numb-nuts. That's awful. Which numb-nuts are you talking about? (both laugh)

THERAPIST: Which one of these Dr. Numb-nuts are you talking about?

CLIENT: Which one do you want?

THERAPIST: There are a lot of doctors that go by numb-nuts.

CLIENT: I guess that's it for today, huh? Wasn't that a wonderful talk?

THERAPIST: Well, you know, Louise, just to say It's in the air.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's in the air. It's the Holidays.

THERAPIST: It's the Holidays, it's your mother. [00:45:27]

CLIENT: It's my mother, it's Alice. It's not seeing the biggest numb-nut in my life, my son.

THERAPIST: Yes. Has that been on your mind, too?

CLIENT: Yeah. I know I could call up to him and say, "Heath, do you think you could get your mother a car? I don't care if it's used or not. Do you think you could handle that for me?" But, knowing my son, it would be at a cost.

THERAPIST: What do you think? What cost?

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean, he's given me up completely. I'm not his mother. I don't know what more he could take from me. He's taken everything else. I'm not even in his life. I can see his obituary Lola being his mother and my father being his father.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right around the holiday time, Thanksgiving and... There's a lot there, a lot of loss.

CLIENT: Him not going to his grandmother's wake, big loss. Him not having Darla in his life.

THERAPIST: Not having his mom in his life.

CLIENT: I can remember one time when he was going to try and get custody of Darla, which he was talking about, but it was under the thing that Deborah had no right to see her and neither did I.

THERAPIST: And neither did you?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Because it would be him and your father?

CLIENT: Him and Moira.

THERAPIST: Him and Moira would become...

CLIENT: Her guardians. And the worst part about it was that he had the power to do it.

THERAPIST: He didn't know he had that. When did you figure out that he had that planned?

CLIENT: About a week later he called me. (pause) Oh, God. I'll see you next week.

THERAPIST: I'll see you next week. Monday. Yes.

CLIENT: I've got you down' for the following week after that and then in December off we go to the new address.

THERAPIST: Do they need the new address?

CLIENT: I've got it.

THERAPIST: All right, Louise.

CLIENT: I'll come again when I need a good cry.

THERAPIST: I think that's a good idea.

CLIENT: (laughs) All right, thanks.

END TRANSCRIPT