Love One

Love One

December 2024

1 John 3:1 ● Deuteronomy 5:7-10

A screeching ak-ak-ak sounded from the rocks. I looked up. Seagull, lots of wingflaps. Must have said something the other ones didn’t like.

“Depression can get like that,” I said. “It can just grab you by the throat and drag you down, down and down until you’re swallowed up by hopelessness, too weak to climb out. It’s like everything shuts down. Except the despair.”

This Sunday afternoon we were seated at an outdoor picnic table not far from the ocean’s edge. Beyond the waveline, a stack of boulders hosted sassy gulls. A hundred yards further out, a skein of pelicans skimmed the water. Soft breeze carried the smell of salt and seaweed. The swash of the waves felt personal, like God was finally attending to my heart. Pauline had brought sandwiches and sodas.

I sipped my crème soda, liked the taste. Hadn’t had one for a long time. “It gets to where shutting everything down looked like the only way out.”

Roger asked, “Shutting down, like in suicide?”

“Yes.” I felt my throat tense. “That.”

He said, “I assumed you had gone away, Sylvie. We hoped you were okay. One Sunday you were in church, the next you weren’t. Even after Dick died, your attendance was clockwork. I went to your house two, three times, nobody home. I asked around, checked with the neighbors, no one knew where you were.”

“I was so broken, physically and emotionally, I couldn’t stay at home. I stopped taking care of myself, could barely function. Dick’s parents rescued me. Didn’t have it together enough to tell you. Sorry.”

Roger winced. I could tell my admission hurt him. Dick and I had been good friends with the Berlingsons for many years. Roger was also our pastor. Pauline was one of my dearest friends.

He nodded, “I understand.”

After my too-long absence from church – more than a year – my showing up for Sunday service was a blessing for all of us. Joyful handshakes quickly became bear hugs. Roger suggested a picnic so we could catch up, Pauline packed up a lunch. I was grateful. All things considered.

“You’ve heard of The Pilgrim’s Progress?” Roger asked.

“John Bunyan? Sure. Old, old story. Never read it.”

“Not an easy read. Published in the late seventeenth century, I think, so the language is archaic. No matter. I remember Bunyan writing of ‘the slough of despond.’ Sounds rather like what you went through.”

“Mnn. Like a swamp of discouragement and futility clogged with muddy sorrow? Rather not think about it. And yes, that’s an apt description.”

“Sylvie, you’ve been on our hearts for months, now. In our prayers. After we had the service for Dick, we didn’t see you at church. I was concerned. As close as you and Dick were, I knew you’d be wrapped in grief. We wanted to give you time, you know, without intruding. We know how grief and depression go together. We had no idea how severe it had become. We wanted to help but without knowing where you were …”

“How could you know, Roger. I hardly knew myself. Everything numbed out. I mean everything. Couldn’t talk about it, could barely function. It was like living with a swarm of insects intent on eating my soul. Just so you know, I was camped out with Dick’s mom and dad. Jean and Erv.”

“So not that far away. Is this something you might want to talk about? Would it help?”

I sipped more soda, felt tears well up. “Maybe.”

Roger vacuumed the air with a sigh. “Sylvie, I know this is a really intrusive question. But you know, it would be very helpful for me to understand, for when I counsel folks who are struggling with grief. Depression. And of course you’re free to say no. But can you tell us what helped you recover?”

“This Reuben is really good. Haven’t had one for years. Sauerkraut’s got a nice bite. I’d forgotten how tasty rye bread is. Pauline, you make it?” I picked up my napkin, dabbed my chin.

“No,” Roger said. His littleboy grin was disarming. “I made them. You’re deflecting.”

“I know.” Sheepish smile. “Remember the counselor you introduced us to, couple of years ago?”

“Niall MacKinnon? Sure. Good man.”

“Well, I saw him on and off for more than a year. First couple of meetings, I felt like I was playing Pin the Tail On the Donkey in a coal mine. He helped me hang in there. Wouldn’t have made it without help from him. Erv and Jean, too.”

“Good to know.”

“It began, I think, when Dick was diagnosed. Then, when I lost my job, it was like my depression went from part-time to full-time. It was like it petrified, turned to stone. When I finally made a breakthrough, everything changed. Kept up with the counseling. Took weeks to pull myself together, you know, before I felt like I could come back to church. This morning it was time and, voila, here I am. And here we are.

“Ultimately, though, it was prayer that got me turned around. Just not in the way you might think.”

I closed my eyes, revisiting that moment my turnabout happened in Dr. MacKinnon’s office. Not unlike a burst of sunlight. Not unlike mountain thunder.

For weeks, months, Niall MacKinnon walked by my side as I muddled through my elephant-sized grief and depression. It started when Dick, my precious and beloved husband, my partner of more than a dozen years began to lose weight. His metabolism seemed to have gone sideways for no apparent reason and when his morning back pain wouldn’t abate with ibuprofen or massage, we went to see our GP. That visit told us everything we needed to know. What we never wanted to hear.

“I am so sorry, Dick. You have pancreatic cancer, stage four. Metastasized. It is non-operable.”

Dick gulped. “How about chemo? Radiation?”

“Sorry. No. It’s too late.”

“How long, Doctor?”

Head shake. “Not long. Months.”

Dick’s cancer ravaged him like a hungry wolf. I used up all my sick leave and vacation time to care for him. His parents, so gracious and kind, were always available to comfort their son on his final journey. Me, too. When it was time, hospice caregivers helped us all navigate Dick’s last days.

My shy and loving man who had in so many ways rescued me and restored me to life. So brave, uncomplaining to the last, Dick took my hand and said, “Sylvie, my love … I’ll be waiting.” Then he closed his eyes and with quiet dignity, left us.

Initially, Erv and Jean tried to comfort me, but they were struck by their own grief. For days, I wept and when there were no more tears, I wrapped myself in a dim cocoon of numbness.

Less than a month after the funeral, I tried to return to work. It was not a surprise when Jon St. Germain, my boss, called me to his office for a sit-down.

“Sylvie, you’ve been a great assistant manager. You know how I’ve tried to make accommodations for what you’re going through, with Dick’s illness and all, lightening your responsibilities. But it’s been more than three weeks now since Dick’s passing and I’m sorry to say, you’re just not back up to speed. Sylvie. You know I’ve got to have someone fill this position that can do the work. I’m so sorry to have to do this but I have no choice but to let you go.”

Then there was that other thing, cloistered so many years ago in the back of my brain, the untouchable thing I could never speak of much less think about, that, unsummoned and unwanted, began to slither into the light.

Lucid, rational thought collapsed into my junkyard of pain and loss and went hunting for a place to die. Depression filled my head; it consumed my heart.

Depression one, life zero.

Jean called a few days after the funeral, didn’t get an answer. She and Erv came knocking, found me in a fetal curl on my bed, refusing to eat, drink or talk. Jean said, “Sylvie, let’s get a few things together for you, You’re coming home with us.”

Immobilized in mind and body, I became convinced that the best I could ascribe to was the life of a vegetable. The usual distractions – TV, music, reading, coffee chats with friends – purposeless blather, all of it. Days differed from night only by the amount of light that spilled around the edges of the curtains.

For the next few days, Jean carefully tugged me out from under the covers, sat me on the tub and bathed me. Steadfast Erv spoon-fed me easy-to-eat mini-meals and once, offered to hydrate me with a bottle-and-tube gadget I’m sure Dick had for his hamsters. For that, I said thanks but no thanks, a regular drinking glass was just fine.

During those long days and nights, a single thought looped in my head: I did it. It was my fault, I made it happen. All of it. I caused Dick’s death because I didn’t detect his illness in time to treat it. I set Jon St. Germain up to fire me by failing to perform. And those horrible, awful teen-age nights I never spoke about, wouldn’t allow myself to think about, so filled with shame and guilt and torment, yes, I was responsible for those, too. How? Not sure. But it was my fault. Had to be, couldn’t be otherwise. Me, me, me: I owned it. All of it.

I became a trainwreck of a woman, a wife and a human being. A catastrophe. A hopeless, unrepairable, unredeemable disaster. Unfit for human transactions. God had plucked me out from the stream of life, hung me on a hook and signboarded me, TOXIC! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

My reward? An all-enveloping, mind-consuming pitch black miasma of anguish and failure, a monster that grabbed my life in its teeth and shook it like a dead rat.

All along, my in-laws tended to my needs as best they could. At night, staring at the ceiling, desperate for sleep, I could hear Erv and Jean reading aloud, sometimes from the Bible, sometimes articles on depression or grief. Their prayers, soft and quiet, didn’t mute their tears. Tucked in some small nook of  my soul, a sprig of gratitude sought to respond and failed. They were suffering too, but captured as I was in the black tentacles of the monster that wanted to eat me alive, I could find no means to express gratitude. All leftover glimmers of hope had left the building long ago. I was perfectly willing, even eager, to follow but I couldn’t even do that. All I was capable of was the continuous replay of all I had failed at, echoing, echoing in my self-carved cavern of condemnation. I was Alice falling down the rabbit hole, only this one didn’t have a bottom.

I guess Erv caught the vibe because he scoured the house, got rid of or sequestered anything and everything potentially poisonous, toxic or lethal. Medications, car keys and kitchen knives went under lock and key. Razor blades were banished. Guns were not an issue; he’d never owned one.

Not one to be satisfied with undotted ‘i’s and uncrossed ‘t’s, Erv looked into his crystal ball and got a glimpse of what might lie ahead. He hired a mover to pack up and store all the personal belongings that were still at my house, brought in a cleaning crew and a landscape outfit to bring the inside and outside up to scratch, then contracted a rent-lease management company. Less than two weeks later, they’d found a ‘nice young couple’ who were in the market for a short-term rental.

And that’s when the intervention arrived in full clatter and clang. Knowing Erv and Jean, I could have expected it. Music blared, sunlight flared, curtains were pulled aside, bed clothes were tugged off and two parental busybodies hauled me up, bathed me,  brushed my teeth, combed my hair, dressed me, oatmeal-and-raisined me, OJ’d me and hobbled me into Dr. Niall MacKinnon’s harbor of mental health and wellness.

Jean, hope gleaming in her eyes, hanky twisted around her fingers, said, “Dr. MacKinnon, this daughter-in-law of ours is broken. Can you fix her, please?”

For the first time in weeks, I laughed. Good ‘ol Jean.

Progress was hard won. MacKinnon later told me that he had almost said no, that the reprieve had come solely from my in-law’s hearts. “Typically,” he said, “making headway with clients who are not motivated is a fool’s errand. Had you not been the beneficiary of the prodigious amount of love from your mother and father-in-law, I would have declined.”

In response, I shared, “I’ve got to admit that I had two rock-hard reasons against coming here. One, I was sure counseling wouldn’t help. Two, I was terrified you were going to make me rip the scab off all the pain.”

“And?”

“Ultimately, I gave in. For the same reason you accepted me as a client.”

“Ah. The power of love. Pretty impressive stuff, isn’t it?”

I had to admit, it was.

Depression one, love one. Tie game.

So we began the therapy thing. Niall MacKinnon – a big man (I mean really big, six-five, two-fifty, treelimb arms and legs, anvil shoulders) – raked his fingers through his thicket of white hair and laid the groundwork. “Sylvie, I am both an ordained minister and a psychologist. I ply my trade as a pastoral therapist. Drs. Freud, Jung, Rogers, Erickson et al did important work in the field of psychology. Their theories opened the doors for the treatment of mental health, helped to bring psychology out of the Dark Ages, God bless ‘em.

“However, after my many years in counseling God’s beloved children, I am of the opinion that there is only one theory that applies to the counsel of whose faith is in God, and that is God’s word.”

MacKinnon’s Hebrew-Greek-English Parallel Bible, a ponderous thing, sat on his desk. He gave it an affectionate pat. “This remarkable book contains so much of what we need to know for the treatment and healing of the wounded spirit. That’s what contributes to the largest part of our need for counsel, and of course, for depression. ‘Tis God’s very own book of the Spirit, our instruction manual for life from which God lovingly teaches us his ways, for they are intended for our greater good. He has given us this” – pat, pat – “because he loves us. He wants us to be well. He wants us to be whole and celebrate his joy and love for us, to seek his hand and heart when we face trials and troubles. The writer of Hebrews tells us this written word is a living and vital thing, keen enough to penetrate one’s heart and soul. Jesus says much the same in John 6:63: the flesh counts for nothing for it is the Spirit that gives life. The words Jesus speaks? They are filled with the Spirit of God and with life.”

His eyes caught mine, startling me at how fierce and kind his eyes could be at the same time. “It is true, Sylvie. They are.

“You should also know that I make little distinction between the psychological and spiritual. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all spiritual. God’s word, ‘tis a rock to stand on, sufficient foundation for building or re-building one’s life. And one more thing: I begin and end every session with prayer.”

He rubbed his palms together, the sound of sandpaper. “Questions? Concern?”

I wobbled my head, no.

“Is that agreeable?”

My answer was a nod and a scowl. Counseling. Phaugh. Who needs it.

Me, maybe?

With patience emblematic of the Chicago Cubs who waited 108 years to win a World Series, Dr. Niall MacKinnon took my spiritual hand and walked beside me on a pathway of recovery. It succeeded in a manner neither of us anticipated.

In our first hour together, the good Dr. MacKinnon educated me about whenever there is a loss, grief will follow. Inevitably, depression will tag along for the ride. He taught me about the ways of depression, how, as its spiritual aspect factors with brain chemistry, it can manifest in the body as headaches and stomach upset and a slew of other dysfunctions. He took time to explain what could be done about it not only in the ministrations of the spirit of God but physically and medically.

“I want you to take two antidepressants, Sylvie. One is provided and blessed by the Lord himself, by far one of the better treatments for depression known to humankind. Sunshine, Vitamin D. Go for walks outdoors, let the sun shine on you. Start slow, five, ten minutes if that is what works for you. Aim for an hour a day.

“And, I want you to see this doctor” – he handed me a name and address memo – “she’s a psychiatrist, knows more about the medical treatment of depression than any ten GPs. She’s also a Christian. She’ll write you a scrip for an antidepressant. Take it. Faithfully. It will help you.

“Now tell me. Do you drink alcohol or use tobacco or recreational drugs?”

“None of the above. Been there, done that. Didn’t much care for any of it.”

“All the better. How about coffee?”

“Love coffee. When I can drink it. Not so much these days.”

“I want you to continue to abstain for a while. Drink water instead. Tea, if you must.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Caffeine is not just a stimulant but in excess can act as a depressant and exacerbate the condition. That’s somewhat true for sugar, too, so I recommend you don’t self-medicate with sodas, candy, ice cream, and such. High sugar intake can backfire on you, too.”

“Okay. Reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said, ‘All things in moderation. Including moderation.’”

MacKinnon’s smile was as broad as the Kansas prairie. “See, you’re getting better already.”

As Erv drove me back home that day, for the first time in weeks, hope about the size of a grain of sand glimmered in my heart. How was I to know that before the year was out, it would fade to a speck of coal dust.

For our next three or four sessions, I eased open the door to my junked-up soul just wide enough to give MacKinnon a glimpse. He, with gentle prayer and gracious words, helped me retrace the steps of my husband’s illness as it took him down to his death, a journey I tried to cover over with all the effectiveness of a three-legged cat in a litterbox. Taking inventory of how I lost my job was only a trifle easier.

As for the ogre that loomed in the catacomb of my younger years, I tried to do what I’d always done: stifle it. Ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t there. Bury it. Deep.

Fearful that my restraint of spiderwebs would come undone, Panic waved at me gleefully from the horizon. Dread blinked at me from over his shoulder.

Throughout those early sessions, I continued to hold myself responsible for my calamity: I alone was cause, effect and aftermath. Dr. Niall wasn’t surprised and said as much but did not diminish his gentle mercy and grace. Instead of giving my self-made crypt any credence, MacKinnon encouraged and strengthened my wounded spirit on a path of recovery with Jesus’ own remedy from Ephesians 4:15; he spoke the truth in love. At the end of each session, he would pray, then give me a half smile and ask, “On a scale of one to ten, where are you today?”

I usually gave him a four or a five, once a six. Never did I tell him the truth. Not until later. Instead, I covered my wounds with the tinsel and spangles of false cheer, all the while tamping the lid down tight on the frightful phantasmagoria that lay beneath.

Every time I left Dr. Mac’s office, I could hear the thing sing with malignant mirth, ‘Hahahee, can’t catch me.’

Foolish. MacKinnon, of course, knew there was something hiding there all along. That was why he changed tracks, no doubt.

Next meeting, as soon as I sat down, he handed me a Bible. “Something different today, Sylvie. If you would, please, look up First John 3:1. Read it aloud. Personalize it as you read, put your name in it. Read it as if it was written exclusively to you. Then we’ll chat.”

I thumbed the pages to First John, found the verse and read: “Sylvie, see what great love the Father has lavished on you, that you should be called a child of God! And that is what you are!”

Dr. Mac spoke with surety. I responded with skepticism.

“Next one, Sylvie. John 11:25.

Sylvie, because you believe in me, you will never die.

“Sylvie, do you believe this?”

“I think so.”

“Tell me why.”

And so it went. Each time we met, MacKinnon would have another set of Scriptures for me to look up. We’d talk about it. One by one, Dr. Mac’s list of verses knocked down my old, cold walls of skepticism, chipped away at my tower of doubt.

1 Corinthians 1:8, Sylvie, God has called you into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ.

“What does that mean to you, Sylvie?”

Ephesians 2:8, Sylvie, it is by grace you have been saved.

“Sylvie, tell me how you understand grace. What is it to you?”

2 Corinthians 5:16, Sylvie, because you are in Christ, your former self has been made new, here and now!

“Sylvie, tell me why you don’t believe that.”

John 14:18, Sylvie, I will never leave you as an orphan, I will come to you.

John 14:26, Sylvie, my Father in Heaven will send the Holy Spirit and he will

teach you all the things you need to know.

“Sylvie, do you believe this? Really? Convince me.”

Romans 8:11, Sylvie, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you.

John 8:16, Sylvie, the Holy Spirit testifies with your own spirit that you are a

child of God.

            “Sheesh, Doc, that’s almost scary.”

Smile. Nod.

Romans 8:26, Sylvie, the Holy Spirit helps you in your weakness and prays

for you.

            “Now that one, I believe. Like it. Really do.”
Smiles all around.

John 14:27, Sylvie, I give you my peace which is so much more complete than what the world calls peace.

“Sylvie, compared to when we began, do you feel more peace now?”

Philippians 4:6, Sylvie, you need not be anxious about anything.

“You mean anxiety is a choice? Really?”

John 14:1, Sylvie, do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid.

“And a troubled heart, like there’s choice involved there, too?”

John 8:32 and 26, Sylvie, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

“Oh, gee, Doc, I hope so. I do hope so.”

On one level, this all made sense. When I was twelve, my BFF Margie invited me to church. I liked it, a lot, and although my parents barely tolerated it, I did the youth choir and church camp junkets. Somewhere along the line, I came to believe in Jesus, the resurrected Christ. I believed in God. I even believed in the Holy Spirit, that he lived in me a la 1 Corinthians 6:19 (although these days I suspected he’d gotten confused and wandered off in the darkness of my pathetic, ruined soul).

Theoretically, what with the capable treatment and care I’d received over these many weeks, I thought my depression would have abated. Like Jesus said, all this truth would set me free. Only it didn’t. What with the path of progress MacKinnon had put me on, what with the supposed strides toward healing I was making, I remained stuck. Stymied. Dead-ended.

But, wouldn’t you know, there’s an inevitability about God’s Word. Despite my roadblock it gave me momentary flashes that there was more to come. Just as God intended. My problem was as soon as I felt my carefully-constructed walls around my secret begin to crumble, my first reaction was to fend off the inevitable. Sure, just apply more skepticism, that would surely work. Denial? That would work even better. It always had.

It wasn’t long before our Scripture exercises became a stream of yadayada. I was stubborn, rebellious, frustrated, and angry. Hands on hips, I gave my therapist notice. Looked him square in the baby blues and said, “Oh, c’mon, Doc, knock it off. This was hopeful when we began but now it’s nothing but a parade of duck-billed platitudes. Let’s get back to the therapy stuff, make some real progress. This Scripture study is nice but it’s going nowhere.”

Laughter was a welcome guest in MacKinnon’s bailiwick, except what I just said wasn’t supposed to be funny. He slapped his knees and when he caught his breath, he said, “Ah, Sylvie. This is therapy stuff. Remember what I said about God’s Word? This is the what brings about healing. It is the good mortar, a salve that fills in the cracks of your stony heart, Sylvie. Foundational stuff.”

Then he nailed me with, “But we’re still not close to what you’re resistance is about. Are we?”

My mouth went dry. Sweat glossed my palms. I shook my head. I croaked, “No. No, it’s not. Guess it’s time to be honest with you.”

My stomach griped. I had a stone in my throat. My voice screeked like a farmhouse screen door. “After all we’ve done together, truth be told, I think my depression is worse.”

Tears garbled my words. I wrung my hands like washrags. “I can’t  keep the pretense going, Doc. Can’t live like this anymore. I just want to die. When I’m not here, in your office, that’s all I think about.”

The dam broke. Niagara flowed. My sawblade wail ripped its way out from the bottom of my soul. “Help me!”

Niall MacKinnon did just that. He prayed.

“Argh! My sandwich!” Between Pauline’s squawk and the flapping of wings, my reverie shut down. A seagull had swooped down and snatched Pauline’s sandwich out of her hand. Wide-eyed and drop-jawed, the three of us gaped at each other. Our laughter made the gulls turn and look.

Pauline shook her fist and hollered, “You terrible bird! I hope you choke!”

Roger handed his unfinished sandwich to his wife. “Here, darlin,’ you have this. I’ll make another one back home. But Sylvie, you were about to tell us how prayer brought you out of your depression.”

“Well, my dear friends, it was like this. I was complaining – more accurately, I was whining – that with the first counseling sessions my depression made some improvement. But then it stopped, sort of plateaued. I was still depressed, I told myself, just not as depressed. But honestly, all I could think of when I wasn’t at MacKinnon’s office was how I wanted to die.

“The turning point came when MacKinnon asked me, ‘Sylvie, tell me how you pray. Give me an example.’ So I did.

“Next thing he says is, ‘Tell me how you talk to yourself. Give me a sample of your every-day script.’

“Well, that script of mine had well-worn grooves by then. I knew it well, rehearsed it every day so it wasn’t hard to share. I confessed to Dr. Mac how I blamed myself for Dick’s illness and death, and for losing my job. It was my all fault because I was beyond unworthy. I was defective, filled with the pain of being an absolute failure. The only thing I could focus on was ending it all.

“Couldn’t fool Dr. Mac, though. He nailed it when he said, “Sylvie, do you think you might tell me now what you’ve been hiding in your heart? What’s buried there, from your early years?

“And there it was. Something inside tumbled and collapsed. I actually felt it, like an old stone wall that got too tired to stand. Piece by piece, it fell away, then the whole thing came down along with a flood of sounds and smells and feelings around what my father did to me, beginning when I was thirteen. How, when he finished his nightly visits with me, he would tell me again how ‘our little secret’ was all my fault, how if I wasn’t such a nasty little girl, so sexy, so provocative, this wouldn’t be happening.

“It was like my soul, strangled, imprisoned for half my lifetime couldn’t stand being shut down anymore. Like it was saying let me out! Let me speak the truth! I need I need light! I need clean air!”

My breath caught again. I gasped, fussed in my purse for a Kleenex, dabbled at my tears for what little good it did. “Roger, Pauline, it was like my memories literally exploded! There in his office, I screamed and shouted and wailed and cried. I hammered MacKinnon’s desk with my fists. I screamed at my father for violating me! I hollered at my mother for not believing me, for failing to defend me! I shouted at God for letting it happen!

“And I wept. No, that’s not correct, not enough. Weeping doesn’t begin to describe what I did. Sobbing, wailing comes close but it’s still not big enough. I don’t know if there’s a word for it.”

Pauline got up from her seat and sat next to me, folded me in her arms and held me and held me and held me and my tears flowed and my wails found voice and more sorrow poured from my heart. All the while, Pauline and Roger quietly prayed.

After a while, peace arrived and settled. I could breathe.

“Sorry. And thank you.”

“Sylvie, dear one, you’re entitled. Anyone who’s endured that kind of abuse is entitled to tears.”

We listened to the waves wash the shore. An occasional gull cried to let us know life on earth hadn’t stopped. Roger’s voice was gentle, soothing. “Sylvie. About your prayer. Can you tell us where that came in?”

“Oh, my! That was an epiphany, like it almost came with sirens, bells and whistles! You know, after Dr. Mac asked me to describe how I prayed and how I talked to myself? As I told him, it hit me! My self-talk was a prayer! Only I wasn’t praying to God. I was praying to my shame, of having been violated, marginalized to a sexual thing by my own father, hashing it over and over, what he did to me, how I had participated in it, enjoyed the physical pleasure of it but hated what he was doing. He was supposed to protect me and care for me but instead I got raped and molested by my own father!

“Locking my shame in a secret place became rich ground for depression to grow in. When I thought back to all those years after I ran away from home, I realized I had been a depressive all along. Sort of a high-functioning one, but still a depressive!

“Thank God for Dick, a man who was so much the opposite of my father, who been raised in a family who understood what mercy and compassion and kindness and love really were, who gave these things away in abundance. A man who honored God.

“Then, when Dick became ill, after all that time of me shutting up my sorrow, my shame, of never speaking a word of it to anyone, well, it sort of knocked things loose. I was losing the man who had rescued me, who made Jesus part of our marriage, who loved me and loved me and loved me.

“The final straw was when I lost my job. Depression bloomed like weeds after a spring rain.

“Depression? It was mine, mine, mine. I nurtured it with a litany of self-talk that contained not one single word of truth. In a perverse way, I worshipped it, prayed to it. My depression became my idol.

“Folks, I didn’t have depression. I was depression.”

Pauline gave her head a shake, my shoulder a squeeze. “Sylvie, in spite of your sorrow, there’s a peace about you that outshines it.”

“Um, yeah. Dr. Mac noticed that, too. It happened, I think, when Erv was reading the Bible, our family devotion, you know. Read Matthew 10:31.”

Roger said, “Jesus’ promise, Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it?”

“Yes. That’s it. Made me realize what I’d been doing, you know. In some perverse way, loving my depression, my shame more than Jesus. By locking everything up, I let my broken heart to starve to death.”

“Helps us understand Deuteronomy 6:4, the Hebrew Shema, doesn’t it.”

Pauline took my hand in one of hers, Roger’s hand in her other. We prayed, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is One. Love he Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

The afternoon sun spangled the water. A flurry of gulls argued over what was left of Pauline’s sandwich. No matter. I was with three of my very best friends, Pauline and Roger and Jesus.

Love one. Depression zero.