My therapist passed away the day after Christmas.
There is the logical, rational part of me that knows he lived much longer than his initial prognosis led any of us to believe.
And, of course, the emotional side wanted him here longer…but that’s terribly selfish of me.
Most people don’t go looking for a therapist when their lives are going well.
And when I found Collin in the summer of 2019, my life was not going well.
Business was thriving, I was not.
My marriage to Marissa was showing its cracks and, knowing that I needed a sounding board for the chaos in my head, I got on the internet, looked for a therapist close to the studio, and thought: Maybe what I need is a male voice.
My father passed away in 2011 and not having that paternal voice in my ear, on my shoulder, was something I knew I was missing.
Collin filled some of those gaps.
He was a little bit older than my Dad would have been, but his demeanor, and his touchpoints for inspiration through therapy, were complementary to what my own father may have said.
Collin was one in a long line of therapists I had seen in my life since about the age of 20.
I was fortunate to have many caring people along the way to help me steer the ship when I was ill-equipped to do so on my own.
I would go in to see Collin about every other week for several months.
I spun my wheels, I vented, I thought I had a lot of answers for how and why my life was headed the direction it was, and most of my answers were incorrect.
I blamed certain parts of my life for my behavior and Collin set my sights on the real problems.
I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and, anyone who can relate to those “Big T” traumas knows that they don’t come without baggage.
I was no exception.
So, Collin gave me tools: books to read, exercises (homework) to do, and, without fail, always a question or two in each session that would make me ponder why I was the way that I was…and more importantly, what was I going to do to change.
It was on that note of change that Collin said the very words I have repeated over and over to myself and others ever since: When you’re in enough pain, you’ll change.
Change was not fast to come.
I was hurting, I didn’t know how to heal, and I didn’t know how to not hurt others in that process.
The problem with the “process” is that there is no blueprint for it.
What you’ll hear people say, is that you need to “process” your pain…
But there is no step-by-step instruction manual on how to do that.
It’s only after you do the work, that you have the clarity to look back and say: Oh…now I get it.
The keywords being; you have to DO THE WORK.
You show up at therapy when you want to.
You show up at therapy when you don’t want to.
You read the books, you do the exercises, you heal the pain.
There is no time constraint, there is no vision of Point A to Point Z until you reach every step in between.
It was during those first several months that Collin heard a lot from me and he heard from Marissa, too.
He didn’t play favorites, he lit a path and gave us tools to decide which way to walk.
And that was perhaps one of Collin’s greatest gifts: he didn’t “give” answers, he displayed options, and he asked crucial questions.
After the marriage got back to its proper place, my conversations with Collin began to slow down.
We stayed in touch, of course, because by then it was no longer about the damage that had occurred, it was about keeping the ship afloat.
He learned more about Marissa and gave her some tools of her own and, along the way, he kept saying to me: I really need to start working out.
To which I said: Well, you know, Collin. I know a guy…
Sure enough, for a short period of time, Collin became a client at RevFit.
And training him was almost as rewarding as being a patient of his.
When his health began to deteriorate, he started doing more virtual sessions from home.
Those sessions worked for a while, and it was always nice to see his face, hear his voice, and stay up to date on how he was feeling.
At a certain point, I think we both realized that our time together was turning more into a friendship, and less about therapy.
It was around that time that he, and his lovely wife Jean, allowed me to stop by their home so that he and I could stay in touch, for as long as his physical body would permit.
Many of those visits lasted no more than thirty minutes.
I wasn’t there to unload on him, I was just there to catch up, to give him a hug, to tell him I loved him and to remind him to be strong.
And he was strong…
For far longer than the doctors ever thought possible.
On the last couple of visits, he made a couple of comments that he wanted to be alive through the holidays.
He was here for Thanksgiving, but on Christmas, he was in hospice care at the hospital and unresponsive.
He passed away early in the morning on December 26.
I got the text message from Jean a few hours later, I took a deep breath, told Marissa that he was gone, and I completely lost my composure.
Because in so many ways, it felt like I lost another father figure.
What Collin did for our marriage was beyond anything my words can express.
What Collin did to help me heal decades of trauma and pain was beyond anything I had done for myself before.
You don’t go to therapy because you’re healed.
You go to therapy because you’re hurting.
And if you DO therapy the way you should, you learn to live a life with more healing and less hurting.
I’m going to miss my friend, who was so much more than a friend, so much more than a therapist.
He lit a light for me, when I couldn’t light one in front of myself.
And I will forever be grateful for his time, his care, his compassion, his love for me and my wife, and for reminding me (as I try to do for my clients) that I was worth the effort.
Thank you Collin.
We love you.
You were so special.
(With special thanks to Ellen D. for sending me this handmade figurine in the likeness of Collin several months ago, so that I would always have him nearby.)
Jason Leenaarts 