Raymond Abbott is a social worker and novelist.
I am often struck that those I work with who have enormous reasons to be depressed — they may be poor, physically ill, uneducated, and very crazy — are not depressed, not at least as I describe depression, a state of melancholy and dejection. In my view, there is a terrible, terrible hopelessness in these situations and in these lives. And then, there is William Jenkins.
With William, I find I …
I went to the doctor yesterday, my semi-annual visit, as it were. These days I see a nurse practitioner, a woman. Recently, she and the practice she is a part of moved into a renovated building, state-of-the-art, they are calling it. It almost sparkles in its newness. The practice is owned by one of the large hospital corporations in our city.
See …
I never thought it would go on for so long — seeing Donald Wyatt, I mean. I certainly didn’t plan it this way.
More than six years ago, I retired at age sixty-six from my social work job at a mental-health agency. Donald had been my client there for about eight years.
As I was cleaning out my office, his mother called. She explained how Donald’s father had left when Donald was …
On my voice mail is a message from Donald Wyatt. He doesn’t often call, but every Monday morning he comes to see me at the Louisville, Kentucky, mental health clinic where I’m a social worker.
His message is brief: “I’m not feeling well, and I am planning a trip to either St. Louis or Elizabethtown.”
I smile, wondering at the odd pairing. Elizabethtown is a small city of 50,000 people. And, well, …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
