Author's posts
A coronavirus confession
I am elderly now, and as a lad, I was raised a Roman Catholic. That often involved going to confession. I wondered if confession was still done, part of the faith. You can see how out of touch I am. I am here to report confession is alive and flouri…
In social work, small actions make a big difference
I first became acquainted with Michael after another case manager I work with, a woman, reported the proprietor of the group home (sort of a boarding house, really), Miss Samantha, as she was known, and whom I knew slightly, said she wanted Michael out…
A priest, a police officer, and tragedy
He shoved the paper with the address in his pocket. Then he found his little black bag with the oils and other implements for giving what once was called the last rites of the church, but were now termed the sacrament of the sick, and headed off in the…
A social worker’s sickest patient
Mary is a woman of sixty years. She is obese. Originally from rural Alabama, she told me her aunt and uncle raised her, and they were bootleggers, making their own liquor. By age fifteen, she was drinking this homemade hooch. She never told me how…
The social worker and a patient who lost her son
Debby Ann has a pit bull, and I remembered that when she called me recently. It had belonged to her son, who is now deceased. He was murdered. She wants to meet me for lunch. Debby Ann is a pretty lady, at least she was the last time I saw her. We w…
The forgotten letter a social worker wrote on behalf of a psychiatrist
Patricia, she is maybe 40. She is mentally ill. Her mother was shot while cooking in her kitchen with a rifle someone was fooling with, and the weapon went off. Patricia was there to see her mother’s head just about blown off. She was 16 then. I d…
A social worker remembers a tortured soul
By profession, Donna Dillon is a photographer. She wouldn’t like to be described as a “professional” anything, but the quality of her photos make her deserving of the term. But disarray and inertia characterize Donna now, by her own …
3 enemas? For a man without a colon?
“Three Fleet enemas?” I ask the nurse. She isn’t much interested in a conversation with me about anything. She is busy. “This man, so far as I understand it, does not have a colon.” It looks to me like they want to reconne…
The social worker and a patient’s homicidal thoughts
“Howard wants to go to the hospital. He knows he isn’t doing that great. He says he is having homicidal thoughts.” This from my supervisor, Linda. Homicidal thoughts on the part of any client get our attention, especially so with Howa…
Breaking the rules to give a bit of hope in a desperate situation
Many years ago, I was given a literary award from the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation. It was for $175 and was an encouragement to finish an American Indian novel I was then writing. “Not enough to quit your job,” I remember was a line fr…
