I lost a teacher this week. A therapist. A mentor. A parent. A loving and kind presence.
I took a morning walk to the Pacific Ocean. I am here for work and arrived early to get settled in before the week begins. It was cold and I was dressed in layers of fleece with a windbreaker—and a wool hat. The wind blew strong, and I leaned forward as I walked. The sun shined through clouds casting rays. I could hear the ocean before I could see it. A gull flew behind me.
Wood Sorrel covered the hillside with little delicate cones of yellow among bright green leaves. Red Passion Flowers climbed the fences. The colorful blossoms a welcome respite from winter back in New England. I breathed in the cool air.
If the poet Mary Oliver had been a therapist, she would have been my therapist, Gail. Gail had a poet’s attention and reverence. Mary Oliver said, Attention is the beginning of devotion. And Gail used her attention like a musical instrument. Her attention had different melodies—sometimes quiet, sometimes louder—and sometimes wide open.
You don’t automatically think of endings being beginnings. But they are. Death comes with a lot of firsts. As I made my way downhill, I was hit with the realization that this is the first work trip I am taking since she died last week. And that means that this is the first trip, since cell phones allowed us all to share pictures with each other, that I won’t share with her.
My work with Gail was long and slow. It was the only way I could absorb the learning. And the only way I could learn to weave, with her help, the fabric of attachment. It was a relationship not marked so much by big moments or insights (thought I certainly can recall them) but rather a constant weaving—of a shuttle of thread going back and forth. Warp and weft. Not everyone needs this kind of work. And not all therapists (or clients) have the patience, or attention, or devotion for this kind of work. But we did, and for that, we have both said at different times that we were lucky.
So much of this weaving was in the form of repetition: letters, emails, poems. And once the technology had been invented: texts. We texted a lot. Often daily. Mostly light. Funny. Playful.
Gail was a photographer and a lover of nature and animals. I loved gardening and traveled for work and was always deep in the writing process—finding quotes or articles that were interesting. I sent her New Yorker Cartoons. She sent me photos of herons and foxes. I sent her pictures of Alaska and Cambodia. She sent pictures of France and Florida. She sent photos of squirrels. I sent her squirrel memes. I sought connection. She sent back words of reassurance and reminder: We both live under the same moon.
I made it down to the ocean and looked up to the high cliffs overhead. I looked out to the waves rolling and crashing on top of each other. I took pictures knowing that I was capturing images I was not able to send. Seeing landscapes I would never share.
Anyone who has had or worked with kids knows this dynamic keenly: watch me. Watch me dive. Watch me jump. Watch me knock down the tower. If you don’t watch, then it didn’t happen. It’s not a game, it’s existence. We like to think that we outgrow this. But this dynamic just transforms: we are as the psychologist Jean Baker Miller says selves-in-relation. Much of our existence is woven into the lives of others. Our memories, our stories, our strengths. When we lose someone, we lose, for a time, these pieces of ourselves. The losses create holes which we work to patch and repair. Our fabric is changed. We are changed by loss.
I walked home from the beach along the same path looking out for the sorrel and the passion flowers. Bird song caught my attention. I could hear but not see a red wing blackbird. And a robin hopped along the high fence next to me flying away and appearing a foot or two ahead of me in a game of tag. He had me in his attention. For a brief moment, I was the object of a robin’s devotion.
During the pandemic, instead of meeting in an office, when I was in town, Gail and I would walk to a nearby lake, or she would bring folding chairs, and we would sit under trees there. Her attention on our conversation, and also on the birdsong. Or the heron in the cove. Listening. But also never missing a chance to see beauty. To catch the divine in nature. One time in the middle of a difficult conversation, she said, “follow me.” We walked down a dirt road to a nest of swans. Cygnets swam around. The conversation disappeared. We simply watched.
I couldn’t send the pictures this morning. But I could hear the blackbird. And watch the robins and the junkos. I could see the Passion flower. And learn the name of the wood sorrel. She could no longer see the world I was looking at. But I realized that the world I was now looking at had changed because of her.
© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD
