What Really Matters: Poems About Love, Loss, & Trauma

Chapter 8: Introducing Poems about Loss and Trauma

Several tragic and disturbing events collided in late July of 2000.

I had built a successful private practice that began in 1998. I started undergraduate school in 1984 as someone with social anxiety and with almost no social skills, but I overcame the shyness, and social anxiety. I learned social skills and I had turned that weakness into a strength... and built a career around it. I learned how to help others who are struggling with emotional and psychological issues.

I had no idea that I would run across anyone who would purposefully seek to destroy that career but that was what happened. That is part of a larger story involving a villain that appears in my autobiography and other books. Let's just say that he was someone who became obsessed with me and was hurting my clients and others. I don't know if he thought I was a threat or what. He convinced five of my clients to file a grievance with my licensure board.

This was a career that I built over a period of 16 years if you count the efforts to overcome shyness/social anxiety which began in 1984. I had worked hard to achieve something very valuable and now some guy posing as a therapist who wasn't actually a therapist was providing therapy to my clients, and they were getting worse. This might sound totally crazy that anyone would be seeking psychotherapy from two people at the same time, one of which was not even a psychotherapist. Well, he claimed to be a "support person."

And they didn't realize that he was making them worse. They needed someone to blame and couldn't complain about a "support person" or try to sue that person. This is NOT to say that I didn't feel bad that they got worse. Over the years I have had to accept that there are some things you can't control and that includes the choices and actions of another person.

This is a complex story that is described elsewhere. The point is that I saw a very successful career being destroyed by someone who I underestimated. My famous last words to Lynn, life partner, were "what can he do?" The answer was he could convince five of my clients to blame me for their problems.

I am writing a poetry book right now and so I will ask you, dear reader, to check out my other books for more information about these issues. I hope that just as when you hear a song and think "what's that song about?" you will similarly want to learn more about the backstory and inspiration for these poems in this book.

At the same point when my career was threatened, the love of my life, Lynn Denise Krupey became seriously ill in late July 2000 - that's when I remember first noticing the changes. I had felt powerless to do anything about this. I titled my autobiography "Memoirs of a Healer: Autobiography of Bruce Whealton." I wasn't a miracle worker, and I couldn't heal Lynn from the genetic and terminal disease that she was born with. I felt powerless.

Losing Lynn occurred with no closure.

That story is very complicated. She faded away out of my life. We never "broke up" or "separated" and then got divorced.

I had given her a ring in 1994 and yet we didn't have a wedding. If we had gotten married this could have affected Lynn's access to medical care. There was a state program that covers the medical expenses for people with Cystic Fibrosis - the deadly disease she was born with. That program would consider both of our incomes if we were "legally" married.

They had strict income requirements. We both wanted to get married and tried to do so at my church, we just couldn't have a legal marriage. The clinic where Lynn was being treated made it apparent that it just was not an option. The insurance program giving her access to medical care did NOT have an option to allow us to pay a premium if they considered our income. She had to appear to be unmarried and her income had to be at the level of poverty.

I was Catholic at the time and marriage was taught to me to be a sacrament (something sacred and holy). As a Catholic or Christian, I reasoned that we were married in the eyes of God. Still, it would have been nice to have a wedding – something to mark the union and commitment... something to allow us to call each other husband and wife. I believed our union was as blessed, holy and meaningful as any husband and wife, including those that led to my existence. Perhaps ours was even more amazing than many, many married people.

Lynn went into the hospital twice in July and August of 2000. After the second time, she moved in with her mother to Wilmington not far from our home. One day she said she didn't think she was coming back.

A meteor had come crashing down upon my life. The home we had known was being obliterated. My home! Our home.

On September 7, 2000, I was summoned by Diane to retrieve what I might want from the home.

I felt like I was dead - literally. I know that might sound hard to imagine.

What happened next, I don't remember. The next few days were dream-like. I was seeing the world as if I were looking through smoke, ashes, and fog. And all I could do was watch.

These next poems reflect that feeling of being lost... searching for Lynn. Feeling like I had no sense of identity and no home. This darkness and this nightmare would last for several years.

The next group of poems tries to capture those feelings and experiences.