100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Grief Counselor by Julie Smith

I started to give Sidney Castille my usual rappity-rap. “This is Jack Beatts,” I said, “with the Grief Protection Unit of the county coroner’s office...”

That was as far as I got before he hung up.

Sidney’s wife, Dawn, had died two days before in a freak accident. He’d found her with a broken neck and her copy of Vince Mattrone’s 30-day Yoga Actualizing Plan lying on the floor beside her. It was open to the section on headstands.

I’d called him because it was my job. After the death certificates are signed, they’re sent to me or one of the other grief counsellors so we can get in touch with the victim’s families.

As soon as Sidney hung up, I knew he was out of touch with his feelings. He was in the first phase of the grief cycle — what we psychologists call the stage of “disbelief and denial.” He was refusing to deal with death.

That’s normal and that’s okay, but I wanted Sidney to know he had alternatives. I had things I could share with him. So I decided to pay him a visit.

I meditated a few minutes to get myself centered and then I drove my Volkswagen over to Sidney’s house on Bay Laurel Lane. It was a typical northern California redwood house set back from the road in a grove of eucalyptus. Smoke was coming out of the chimney.

As I got closer, I could see the living room through sliding glass doors that opened onto a deck. Several cats prowled in the room like tigers in a forest. Dozens of plants hung from the ceiling and took up most of the floor space as well. There was nothing to sit on but oversized cushions.

On the far wall of the room was a fireplace with a pile of books in front of it. A man was squatting there, burning the books, feeding them one by one into the fireplace.

“Sidney?” I said. “I’m Jack Beatts from...”

“Oh, yes, the man from the coroner’s office.”

He let me in and waved me to a cushion, but he didn’t seem pleased about it. In fact, he went right back to feeding the fire.

“Sidney,” I said, “I’m going to be up front with you. When you hung up, I sensed I’d better get over here right away.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I guess I panicked when you said ‘coroner’s office.’ ”

“A lot of people are uptight about that. But I’m going to ask you to forget about the bureaucracy and just be open with me.”

“I guess we may as well get it over with.” He put a copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones in the fireplace and turned around to face me. A tear rolled down each cheek.

“That’s it, Sidney,” I said. “Flow with it. Experience your feelings.”

“You talk like Dawn.”

“I know how it is, Sidney. Everything reminds you of her, doesn’t it? But that’s okay at this stage. I don’t want you to be negative about it.”

“Negative!” he snorted. “What am I supposed to...”

“I’ll bet those are Dawn’s books you’re burning.” He nodded. “And it looks like you’re about to take the cats to the pound. You’re getting rid of everything that reminds you of Dawn, aren’t you?”

Tears came into his eyes again. “I couldn’t take it any more, Mr. Beatts. I never should have married her in the first place.”

“I know where you’re coming from, Sidney. You felt inadequate because you were a lot older than Dawn, right?”

“She was twenty-two,” he said, “and looking for a Daddy. A rich daddy. And I was just lonely, I guess. I picked her up hitchhiking on my way out here from Ohio after my first wife died.” He winced. “But she died of natural causes.”

“Death is natural, Sidney. I mean life is a circle, you know? I want you to choose to recognize that. And if burning books is what’s happening for you, I don’t want you to feel guilty behind it. Just acknowledge that it’s okay.”

“Look, are you going to take me in or what?”

“Take you in? Oh, you mean to the Grief Center.”

“Is that what they call it in California?”

“For sure. We can rap anywhere you like if the vibes are wrong here.”

“What is a vibe, Mr. Beatts? If I heard Dawn use that word once I...”

“Now stay loose, Sidney. I hear what you’re saying and I sense you’re uptight behind it. You couldn’t relate to Dawn’s lifestyle, right?”

He began picking up cats and taking them to the carriers on the deck. I didn’t want to blow the energy we had going, so I followed along beside him.

“She was all caught up in what they call the human potential movement,” he said. “Transactional analysis, transcendental meditation, self-actualization, bioenergetics, biofeedback...”

“She must have been a heavy lady.”

“She talked funny. Like you. And she cooked things like wheat germ soufflé. And she wanted the house to be ‘natural.’ You couldn’t go to sleep without a cat curled around your neck, or a spider plant tickling your nose. It got so every time I saw her do that crazy yogurt...”

“Yoga.”

He closed the last carrier and we went back into the house.

“I used to call it yogurt to annoy her,” he said, squatting by the books again. “Anyway, when she started to stand on her head, she’d do it first with her feet against the wall and then she’d let go of the wall and stick her legs up in the air. Well, every time I saw her with her feet like that, getting little toeprints all over the paint, I’d think how easy it would be just to grab her and...” He stopped.

“And what?”

“And snap her neck.”

I nearly clapped him on the back I was so relieved. At last he’d gotten his energy flowing in a positive way! “I have to acknowledge you, Sidney,” I said. “It’s really a far out thing to see someone being so open about his fantasies.”

Sidney tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Sometimes you have to hurt people to help them so I took a chance.

“You killed her, didn’t you, Sidney?” I said.

He kept his eyes down as he put the handkerchief back in his pocket. “You knew all along,” he said finally.

“For sure,” I said supportively. “Self-recrimination is very common in the first stage of the grief cycle, and I want you to know that it’s okay.”

“Okay?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

“A lot of people get on that kind of trip when something like this happens. You and Dawn weren’t getting along and you feel guilty about it now, right? You think she died because of something in your karma.”

The way Sidney looked at me I could tell he was surprised. He didn’t really expect anyone else to understand. He started to speak, but I stopped him.

“That’s okay,” I said. “You know? Because it’s only the first part of the cycle. You know what’s next? Personality reorganization! Sidney, you’ve got a really positive thing to look forward to.”

Sidney sat down on one of the cushions and started to laugh. It doesn’t happen often that somebody really flashes on the whole cycle like that, and it was a far out thing to see.

“Mr. Beatts,” he said. “I don’t remotely understand where you’re coming from...”

“Don’t try, man.”

“But I think I can flow with it.”