Learning to Blend Home and Work

It was dusk. The setting sun had cast its final show of colors in the sky and it was the end of a long, trying week for all of us. When it is a hard week for the parents, it is a hard week for the children. Feeling the relief that the weekend had finally come, my family and I set out for an evening stroll. An evening walk in the fall in the Northeast is a special kind of family counseling; the lack of direction in the conversation facilitates the connection among us.

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The kids, ages 7, 5 and 4, were just ahead of me, running outside in excitement. I followed only a minute later. As I stepped out of the front door, my gaze was immediately drawn to the silence that emanated from the busy road in front of our house. A line of cars in both directions was stopped, and the headlights from the cars illuminated the reason for the strange eerie stillness that had evoked my attention. There in the middle of the road was Lillo, our family cat.

I rushed past the playing children, who didn't notice what had happened, and ran into the road. There lay Lillo's body, still and perfect. No scars, no blood. He neither cried out in pain nor stirred in recognition when I called his name. A young couple had left their car and joined me I the road. Helpless, they stood next to me with quiet compassion, looking down at the cat.

I was suddenly overcome with the urge to do something. The couple offered their services to stand guard over Lillo while I went looking for a box. Not wanting to leave the road, but also needing a cure for the tragedy that lay there, I turned and walked toward the house in search of some kind of offering to comfort Lillo. I was filled with competing emotions of fear, disbelief and raw sadness. My memories of that moment are still a blur.

On the lawn, my daughter, the oldest, had stopped playing. I heard her scream, "Is he dead?" Her brother joined her; together they created a shrill chorus of fear. I picked her up and mumbled the truth in her ear -- I wasn't sure if Lillo was dead. We walked toward the house and were joined by their dad, our youngest son, and Lillo, lying still on a box top. The traffic flow resumed outside, and our world closed in as we confirmed that Lillo was, indeed, dead. With the final declaration, my middle son quieted, and the youngest joined in our tears.

What followed was the process of mourning. We brought our cat inside and sat with him in the living room. Through his tears, my four-year-old asked if we could call the police and arrest the person who killed our cat. My daughter screamed out in anger, "Why did you make us move here in the first place? Why did you have to buy a house on such a busy street?" We acknowledged her anger and also reflected the pain and the sadness, and the feeling of helplessness. No need to defend ourselves from her angry words -- we, too, wondered who was responsible for the pain that we all felt.

Then my daughter's anger turned into sadness, and she articulated the existential question that we all were asking inside, "Why did Lillo have to die?" The middle child, in his predictable silence, climbed into the arms of his father where he knew that he would be safe from any further questions. He let himself be rocked into a sleep-like state.

Lillo was with us all that weekend, even after we buried him in the backyard the following morning. I was sure that some understanding would come to me from this experience of pain and sadness. Deep down, I guess, I believe that understandings always emerge from powerful experiences. For me, the understandings were both personal and professional. The blending of these two realms of my existence is something that I gave up resisting long ago.

Engulfed with pain and sadness, if feels shameful to admit that such pain actually fuels my passion for my work. I returned to my classes on Monday with newfound -- if not still developing -- insights about children, grief and the process of counseling. I shared my story of Lillo with the students in my classes that week. In a theory class, I discussed how my children's cognitive understandings of this death experience were tempered by birth order. I told of how my oldest and youngest children seemed eager to give a final goodbye to Lillo, as if they understood that death was final. They sat beside Lillo's body that night and gently rubbed their hands on his fluffy long fur, as if they were communicating their sadness through caring for him one last time. They were creating a new schema of death.

In contrast, my middle son learns in slightly different ways. He was reluctant to touch the cat. When he did approach Lillo, his actions seemed motivated by obligation, or perhaps, curiosity. He gently touched the dead cat, and then quickly removed his hand, asking "What's in there?" It seems that all of the talk of Lillo's soul leaving, not feeling anymore pain, had ill prepared him for the solid form that his little fingers touched. "His bones and organs," I informed him, "they're still in Lillo." His new experience of feeling Lillo's bones intact further confused his understanding of the meaning of death. But in his silence and concrete questions, he grieved the death of our family cat. The next day, in his own private way, this silent child shared the news of Lillo's death with his friends through whispered accounts and invitations to see the place where Lillo was buried.

In seminar class, students cried in response to my story about Lillo. Recognizing this intensity, I let them grapple with their own meanings of my experience. The first student to speak apologized for her tears and confessed that she had been experiencing a lot of stress in her life. The others stared at her in disbelief and finally commented, "You always seem so together." Students seemed to find comfort in the knowledge that they were allowed to be human, and this shared knowing propelled the group to a new level.

Next, a student soberly admitted to the group that listening to children at her internship site recount stories of their difficult lives filled her with intense sadness and pain. We talked about how experiencing our own sadness helps us find empathy and the expression of empathy pushed our group to a deeper level. In that deeper place, we were able to begin to make meanings of our experiences. Our own group process paralleled the process that my students will use in their client work.

We learned that empathy means to be with clients when they are in pain. Empathy means being strong and centered, capable of containing and directing, but also not controlling, not changing the focus and not shutting down. The work of the counselor happens within a relationship of connection, not detachment; the counselor needs to feel with the client, but not for or instead of him. The relationship of caring is that intricate; the counselor is merely a conductor, guiding the sounds to create music.

Finally, another student in the seminar class thanked me for my story about Lillo. She told me that she was touched that I would share my story with the group and she thanked me for all of the teachings that my children had given her. At that moment, my own meanings of the experience were validated; my home life and my work life truly are connected. Insights are not solely connected to either. This simple statement, one I have struggled to articulate in public, encapsulate my own journey as a counselor trying to find my own way.

This story about Lillo truly is a blending of my two realms of existence. My home so powerfully affects my work and my work also deeply affects my life at home. My relationships in the home give meaning to the theories and practices I teach, and my presence that terribly sad night reflected the multiple layers of who I am -- a partner, a mother, a counselor and a teacher. I hope I never become so highly trained or "skilled" that I lose the ability to feel with others. I also hope that I never become so learned that I lose sight of how my work informs my life and how life itself informs my work as a counselor.

Anne M. Geroski is an assistant professor in the counseling program at the University of Vermont.