©OrangeYouGlad Home ~ Contact

	her students during the day. I felt it was critical for her to regain her composure by getting some sleep, so I prescribed sleeping pills and we scheduled biweekly appointments.      As our sessions went on, Emily began to see the old woman's motives differently. Emily came to see her as less of a malicious 'witch' and more along the lines of a gardener 'needing to weed the garden.' Emily felt that this woman was mean, that she was 'a hateful soul, who fed off the misery of others,' but Emily made a distinction between the evilness of her character and the neutrality of her intended deed. A gardener can be gentle or spiteful, but spraying a weed with an herbicide is simply an act of purification.      Do not mistake me, this thought brought with it no comfort to Emily. In fact, it made her all the more fearful. She began to feel that yes, she was a weed – that she was 'planted in the wrong plot' to use her words. She felt that the old woman was coming for her, and that soon, 'the garden would be as it should.'      I must say that I was deeply disturbed when I read the newspaper this morning: Forty-seven-year-old Emily F___ was found dead in her apartment yesterday morning. Ms. F___ apparently died of an overdose of sleeping pills. The pills were ground into a fine powder and placed in her nightly glass of heated milk. Ms. F___ made news forty years ago as the		abused granddaughter of Mrs. Natalie F___ who also died in an apparent suicide -- overdosing on pain relief medication. The seven-year-old Emily was found with torn clothes and covered in bruises but laughing and playing with her grandmother's empty prescription bottle. When asked by the authorities to give account of the events leading to her grandmother's death, Emily could not recall any details and even maintained that she did not have a grandmother.      For me to have prescribed sleeping pills to a woman who was in fear of being poisoned was foolish. I should have known Emily was suffering from repressed guilt. I should have known that her guilt was sufficiently powerful to move her to take her own life.      I can imagine her now, sitting on my couch, her angst-ridden face, her tightened fists, those cold eyes. I should have been able to save her. I should have been able to get through to her, to make her cry, to make her remember. Those damn, cold eyes. It's as if I can feel those eyes upon me now – staring blankly. I do not think that Emily blames me, I mean, would blame me. But I have the odd feeling like she is watching me, waiting for some event.      It is now 1:13 AM. Before retiring for the night I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down to read in order to distract myself. I know I've been working long hours – and with Emily's