Celta Camille Head

In the last chapter, I told you about the joy I found in finding someone to love and someone who loved me. I told you about the experiences I had, and I hope it was clear just how meaningful this was in my life's trajectory. It was so important to present the profound and positive impact this had on my life.

This was life-altering.

The experiences I had growing up, in my home environment were toxic to the development of the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that I would need to achieve my career goals. Something had been missing despite all the improvements I had made in my sense of worth.

It's hard to know what you need to overcome a problem that has existed throughout your life. My therapist or counselor in college was very talented, competent, and profoundly helpful. However, we failed to fully appreciate all the negative impacts of abuse and devaluation that I had experienced in my home life from my parents.

Then I met Celta, and something happened. She seemed to delight in me. She was so interested in my experiences. She also was concerned about my well-being and happiness. I knew she was thinking about me for most of the day each and every day! Her diary-style, stream of consciousness letters told me this.

I knew she was thinking about me for so much of her day, each and every day, because of the letters she wrote to me - her diary of sorts composed with me in mind as someone she wanted to share her life with. I had realized that I previously thought that I was not that important to anyone. This is what I meant by seeking a relationship with some aspect of exclusivity or the idea that I could be the most important person to someone.

I knew that I was the only one that Celta loved the way she loved me. Previously, I had friends, but they all had a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse or the relationship wasn't as close.

After I was with Celta, I felt like I was ten feet tall... confident... worthwhile, and deserving. My self-esteem was higher than it had ever been in my life. I also felt safe trying new things. This idea might seem unexpected. She was just a small girl (woman). I sensed that she deeply cared about me and thought about me and that was transformative.

It's important to underscore these important points before I move on with this story.

When I say that our relationship was platonic, I mean that we were not boyfriend and girlfriend. We didn't have a physical relationship. That being said, we did exchange "I love you" on a daily basis or whenever we talked on the phone or saw each other. We were close and perhaps somewhat intimate and physical but not in a sexual way. Then later there was the fact that she said in September that she loved me but wasn't in love with me.

What did that mean? What made it so complicated was the fact that Celta knew exactly what I was feeling and experiencing. It bordered on two people being psychic and connected to one another. I didn’t have to tell her much about the abusive and toxic experiences with my parents when I came to see her. She knew. She comforted me. In her presence I experienced something no medication ever offered - total and complete serenity.

As time passed after she said she was not in love with me back in September, I was afraid to ask if that changed. It wasn’t because of anything that we were doing together physically. It’s just that she would have known how I felt and wanted me to experience love. Instead our eyes and our time together screamed that we were in love without her saying “I am now in love.”

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as we spent so many countless moments of perfect serenity together holding each other, arms wrapped around each other. It was impulsive.

Her lips were so thin that I didn't feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She didn’t turn away or suggest that this should not happen. It just happened. It was what we did that day. If either one of us had not wanted or let it happen it would not have happened.

I discovered for the first time that some expressions of love our outside our control. This is relevant when one thinks about the religious brainwashing to which I was exposed. At this point, the words from September that she was not in love, would have been something I would eventually have asked her to clarify if she had not more likely reflected the truth that we were in love.

She had such tiny lips due to her low weight, a fact of her condition of anorexia. This made it seem like not what I expected. It was on the drive back from the visit that I realized that this had to be explored further. We needed to do something more to express our love for one another.

Sometime later I pictured my face turning to the right and moving closer to her as she moved toward me. I had been in sync with her and felt so comfortable. I knew that she might have said that one time that she was not in love but when we were together there were so many times when she had that look of someone who was so happy, comfortable and it sure looked like she was in love. Well, she definitely had "romantic" feelings.

Also, when I was with her, I could see myself and my feelings. You just know those things. There were so many subtle behavioral cues that told me what she was feeling and how she was responding to my touches... how I held her... where I touched her. Everything had been welcomed. I played back memories of how when I touched her she moved closer to me.

No, what a minute. This was NOT about the ways I touched her. By saying that, I am leaving out so much. What was so profound is the way she touched me. She was NEVER an object to be approached and desired. I was comfortable enough to be close to her all the time and at those times, she was touching me - it was so natural and right… Dreamy eyes looking at each other with my leg on the side of her bed and her leg moving over to rest on mine. Moments after my arrival when we faced each other in the fetal position staring into each others eyes.

Those were some of the moments in which I was the first to say “I love you” with her immediate response, “I love you, too.” Indeed, I would reflect on whether I always said it first.

As I replayed that imagined kiss – next time - I would begin to tilt my head to the right, bend down, she would be acting on instinct, without taking the time to over-think it – that's what I would do, and she was my mirror. Sometimes we do things as if the moment is such that it is inevitable. She would move to meet my lips... she would be transfixed upon my eyes and I hers. I felt excited as I replayed this in my mind.

It was as if it had happened already, almost.

It would never happen.

On New Year's Day of 1991, I received the most devastating news of my life. A phone call shattered my world. I was in my room on the second floor of my parents' house when I heard the words, "Celta died last night."

"How?" I demanded, unable to grasp or accept the harsh reality. I was paralyzed by shock, desperately willing it all to be untrue! The question of “how?” seemed like every part of me was challenging the mere possibility that this news could be true. The person I told every single day that I love her was gone! No, that couldn’t be true.

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation." The fire had ignited from an exposed electrical cord on a TV.

As details of the funeral, its location, and time filtered through my numb mind, I struggled to articulate the turmoil within me. I had spoken with the caller a few times before—a family friend—but now, tears blurred my vision. "Okay, I'll be there, but I can't talk..." I choked out, my voice breaking. They needed to know I would be there.

I let the phone slip from my hand and erupted into a storm of anguished tears.

The pain was unbearable!

Tears streamed down my face as I drove to the funeral, my heart heavy with sorrow. Standing before the closed casket, a tidal wave of emotion consumed me. A fleeting, irrational urge to open it and confirm that it wasn't Celta inside gripped me.

At the funeral, my grief overflowed, my sobs louder and more profound than everyone else's combined. I was beyond caring about appearances.

It was at the Episcopalian church, the place Celta and I attended together, where I would sit beside her mother and Celta herself. I was still a practicing Christian, attending church regularly, but now, everything felt unbearably different.

Standing outside after the funeral, I was caught between murmurs of consolation and the overwhelming sight of the closed casket—a painful, unyielding reminder that this was real. My tears streamed unabated as I grappled with raw grief, and all the while, Celta's mother, with a mix of stern protectiveness and unspoken pity, forbade me from witnessing the burial. She believed, as did I deep down, that I was too fragile, that I wouldn’t survive the storm of that final goodbye. Torn between obeying her and my own desperate need to honor Celta, I felt pulled apart.

At the burial, it was as if the universe had decided that the one heart that loved Celta most, the one whose grief cut deeper than anyone else’s, would be absent from that final tribute. I wasn’t there, having followed Celta's mother’s command by fleeing Athens (Athens, Georgia). In that absence, I was consumed by a bitter sense of betrayal—not just by fate, but by God himself. I questioned why the one force that should have sheltered me had left me to drown in my sorrow. Why was I shown something so beautiful as love is only to have it suddenly taken away.

Despite this inner tumult, I sought help at a grief counseling group led by a nun at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia—a desperate attempt to make sense of it all. The sessions, revolving around guided imagery, relaxation, prayer, and scriptures, felt at once both comforting and painfully clinical. I met with her a few times and even asked for tape recordings, as if locking away her words might somehow patch the gaping wound inside me.

In those group sessions, where the stages of grief were laid out like a cold roadmap, the members shared mementos of memories with their lost loved ones. I listened intently, a wide-eyed outlier among older, seemingly more stoic souls. Yet, I felt like I fit in and belonged. The cold reality of death screamed and cried out that I was meant to be here. I had been in love and she was gone. That was true.

And then there was my family—the constant, yet strangely absent, presence. My parents, with their indifferent instructions and vague expectations, never quite understood my inner chaos. There was a persistent, stinging desire within me to share with them the overwhelming experience of having been loved so wholly by Celta. But instead, I was unable to share my story with them because I never did share things with my family.

It would never occur to me that they would know how to comfort me. This silence about something so profound was a reminder of the callous indifference of my parents. They had NEVER shown me compassion, empathy, kindness, comfort. Having never had real nurturing parents, not ever, I couldn’t even imagine what I would want from them.

As I recount this, it’s painfully clear that it was the first time I had ever truly been loved, and that love both illuminated and cursed me. Could it be that my parents sensed I had never truly loved them in return?

Anyone who saw me regularly would have noticed that something was terribly off—that I carried a secret sorrow beneath my composed exterior. Yet, it was as if my parents and even my brother were haunted by their own denial, unwilling or unable to confront my transformation. Despite the emotional chasm that separated us, all I wanted was to celebrate the unique, transformative relationship I had with Celta. But how does one begin to articulate such complexity?

That year with Celta, brimming with vibrant meaning and fleeting joy, now felt tainted by loss. The experience of being loved and loving in return can never be fully grasped until it is lived, and in its absence, I was left wrestling with both euphoric memories and unbearable pain.

In the midst of all this conflict, I found myself turning to alcohol—a desperate, self-destructive attempt to drown the duality of love and grief, to escape from the inescapable truth of my shattered heart.

I was put on a tricyclic anti-depressant by a psychiatrist. I had developed panic attacks as well. The anti-depressant had the effect of creating a sense of positive feelings even with my mother standing there one morning ironing something for work with my father getting ready too. Those fake feelings were only transitory. It is reminiscent of the song by REM titled "It's the end of the world as we know it."... and I feel fine. I guess I felt "high."

The days flowed around me like a mystical experience in which I flowed in and out of my body. I wasn't fully alive or so it seemed... betrayed even by God.

It was all a blur. My entire existence.

There is something that is so very profound about this story. I honestly never knew anyone who was so interested in me and no one had made me so happy. This is an observation I was making as the story moves into April of 1990.

As I mentioned at the end of the last chapter, things got better after she settled into an apartment in Athens. Something amazing was happening because she had been living a life previously that threatened her health and was characterized by excessive drinking. Her weight had been so low that it threatened her life. I can discern these facts. 

What was different now? Our connection had undeniably made a difference. 

I knew my parents were extremely judgmental of others. So, I was keeping this relationship to myself. I had enough to deal with when it came to them without getting into a fight if they said anything derogatory. Still, their lack of curiosity was strange.

I was calling Celta every night. We talked for at least an hour. At some point in May, I started telling Celta "I love you" every time we spoke. Just as I was saying goodbye with a promise to call the next day and she would answer, "I love you too." I felt butterflies in my stomach. After I put the phone down, I would look up at the ceiling with a smile on my face.

Most of the time I came on Sundays. She had suggested the Botanical Gardens in Athens. They had a flower bed in front of the main building. In April the pansies were in bloom. I was looking at them holding Celta's hand as we imagined what kind of expression they had on their yellow or violet faces.

Inside the building, they had exotic plants with different names. Some were trees with variously shaped green leaves. A wide range of flowers. Some of the trees sprouted flowers as well. There was a restaurant upstairs and another downstairs. It always seemed too quiet, and Celta didn't even mention eating there. We would walk around the grounds most of the time. They had paths or trails with various plants labeled along the way. Along the parking lot, there was a place that was slightly woodsy.

During this time, when we were apart, she continued to compose hand-written letters to me, and we found things to talk about on the phone every day.

I would treasure those letters. Her letters made me feel like I was with her even when we were apart. I would read them again and again. There is something magical about a person sharing their most intimate thoughts and observations in real-time, uncensored - a stream of consciousness observation.

"I think it is amazing," I said to Celta.

"What?"

"Well, your letters to me are about your experiences and observations. Yet they feel like gifts to me.

I used to think that we should not just talk about ourselves and our own feelings. That's not true."

During this time, I would often go to the Catholic Church with my parents and my brother on Saturday evenings. Then I would drive to Athens on Sunday.

Celta started going to the AA – alcoholics anonymous – meetings in the mornings. I thought that her anorexia and the psychological were equally serious, but I was too new in the psychiatric field to know what would be best for her. She told me to come with her.

I said, "are you sure I can?"

"Yes, it's an open meeting."

"Okay."

I sat there holding her hand... occasionally looking around... often my eyes rested on her while she seemed to be listening.

Just before the end of the meeting she gestured to get up and said we can go now. She had told me her religion was Episcopalian which is similar to Catholicism which I had known. As we got up and started walking out the front door away from where we parked and toward the church, holding hands, I felt ten feet tall, that feeling I would have with her.

Sometimes we showed up a bit early and stood outside where they had the meetings. We stood there, arms around each other, looking at each other, lost in words, dreams, and our own world.

One time I stepped away to use a restroom that was in another area and some people were talking.

Some of the literature caught my eye. I was feeling a bit out of place though. A guy and a woman approached me. "I'm Linda," said the woman. The guy said, "Oh, you're Celta's boyfriend."

Without a second thought, I just said "Yes," and said we are going to church now. I had not even thought about what I had just said until later and it just brought a smile to my face when I reflected upon the moment. For some reason, I didn't mention that to Celta.

I walked upstairs and found Celta standing by herself in the hallway. I smiled and wrapped the fingers of my right hand into the fingers on her left hand and we walked toward the doorway passing others who were congregating. It felt like a formal procession. That's why they assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend. What else would one think?

I would open the doors for both of us hearing the lyrics from the song "Miracles" by Jefferson Starship drifting through my mind.

If only you believe in
miracles, baby
so would I
{pause}

I might have to move
heaven and earth to prove
it to you, baby

And we walked like this the short distance to the church. I spotted Faye, Celta's mother and we walked there. I slid down the row and next to her mother with Celta on my right – me in the middle.

No one gestured for Celta to sit in the middle next to her mother.

On another visit, Celta mentioned that she had met a guy named David at one of the AA meetings and asked if we could visit him. I took it like she was reaching out to help someone like I might do the same. He was staying in a residential facility for people with alcohol problems.

When we got there, I noticed the long entrance roadway into the place. It was a nice summer day with the green grass flowing over a gentle hill.

"Were you here before?" I asked her.

"A couple of years ago for about a month."

We found David and decided to walk a bit toward a shaded area. I reached for Celta's left hand and she took my hand. I guess I felt a little jealous. She looked at me and just smiled. I managed a smile back.

There was another visit where Celta asked to visit David again. I couldn't let her down, but I wanted my time with her. No, she wasn't looking at David like she looked at me. I was a bit surprised at my feelings. I was slightly upset but didn't say anything. As I took her hand we walked a bit and then she reached out to take David's hand too with a playful childlike look on her face.

We were near a swing set. "Have a seat, I'll push you," I said.

I pulled her forward a bit and pushed her back.

David started to talk about something then his voice trailed off.

I was pushing Celta away and she would return. Not too far, just past the triangular poles of the swing set. Her brown hair caught the sun at the farthest crest – just to the right of her head.

Everything was quiet. Our eyes were locked. She smiled that look that said she was happy to be with me. I mouthed the words "I love you" silently, and she smiled, in a rhythm with the swing, as she was closest.

It was hypnotic. We breathed with each cycle of her moving toward me and then away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed David shift a bit almost restless. I then felt bad for him. Celta had not averted her gaze from me. She seemed content.

After another few moments, I noticed she was wanting to swing higher. I wondered, "could she fall?" and then gently caught her legs and said, "what if you fall?"

She just smiled.

"It's getting late," I said.

On another visit, we went to a zoo that was near the Botanical Gardens. They had some black bears, a few monkeys, a few wolves, foxes, a bobcat, snakes, turkeys, dear – not in the same enclosure, of course. It was called Bear Hollow Zoo.

I told Celta that this felt like I was going on a vacation when I came. An escape. A getaway – that's a good word.

I got to meet her father too. He was nice and he took some photos of us.

The time I spent with Celta seemed to sustain me through the workweek.

I have no idea why but there was a period of just over a week in early September where she had another drinking binge. I wasn't mad, I was mystified by what happened.

Then things seemed normal again with our relationship. I felt comfortable with her.

It seemed like she picked up on my feelings around this time and the sense that I was hurt and scared. It wasn't like she intended any harm to me. If she had this problem for all these years and it had been so troublesome to everyone, what was different now?

She seemed a bit off the next time I saw her. I guess it was like she felt shame for her problems and the impact they might have on me. I had mentioned previously how someone who knew the family told me that Celta was just a user and manipulator. Those are words I knew that people say to people like Celta hoping to motivate them to change.

But she was beating her problems.

When she had been in the psychiatric hospital, I remember they said they worried that if she died within 30 days of her release, they would be libel. So, it seemed like she had to gain a certain amount of weight. It seemed like they then changed their mind and decided that they can't keep her forever. It had been a grim prognosis and it offended me. But she had lasted all these months and seemed okay despite being so thin.

It felt like love had saved her – not just my love for her but her love for me – our mutual love.

We began talking about our relationship and the nature of the relationship. She had this pensive look on her face as if she was remembering something as she looked away, out the window. Then she said, "I love you, but I am not in love."

"Okay, because... I don't know either what we have." I answered. "And..." I started to say something. "I don't know what to say. I haven't thought about things like this before."

It was a late summer day in September. What was my question way back when she had looked up at the TV and saw a video of the song "I don't know much, but I know I love you?"

Nothing had changed in the following weeks when I saw her. For example, the following week I came and at one point she took a seat on her bed and I looked down at her smiling with a feeling of joy almost bordering on amusement as I looked into her eyes. She was looking up and she had a look on her face like she was in love or delighted by something. I want to say she had a look that conveyed a sense of some "hunger", but she was just looking.

When I sat down next to her on her bed, I was on her left and I touched her right leg. I was thinking that I wanted to be closer, to feel her body next to mine. She moved her legs over mine. My hand rested against her lower back. Her arms went around me.

I felt peaceful, serene. Nothing was said. We just smiled at one another. I could feel every place where our bodies touched. It wasn't exciting but peaceful. I could feel a tingling feeling and chills.

Slow and repeated like some wave.

I felt peaceful, serene. Nothing was said. We just smiled at one another. I could feel every place where our bodies touched. It wasn't exciting but peaceful. I could feel a tingling feeling and chills.

Slow and repeated like some wave.

The fall moved into the Georgia area and the air-cooled. The leaves were falling off the trees.

We came to the place where the pathway met the parking lot. I looked up to an area in the trees. I was thinking that it was cool enough that there wouldn't be any snakes. I gestured to the left. "Up there, it will be a little private for us." I said adding, "I don't want to be disturbed by the others.

I was telling her what to me didn't sound very exciting - just something about where I used to go hiking when I was growing up. This somewhat reminded me of that. We had woods behind our house where we lived when I was growing up. I was saying that just behind our house the woods didn't go very deep. We were unpacking the food we brought.

I looked up and she seemed transfixed with her full and complete attention on me.

Wow! I almost wanted to ask, "what do you see in me that is so interesting or exciting?" but that didn't seem necessary with Celta or maybe it didn't seem appropriate to me. We had a connection. Wow! What was it that was happening? I had never noticed anyone so interested in me. It was almost as if I had hypnotized her.

Later, I would think, "that was a moment I should capture in a poem."

How did holding hands feel so special? Or her listening to me with interest? Or how can non-sexual touching feel so powerful?

Moments later we were walking hand-in-hand. My mind drifted to the various feelings that I had.

Sometimes I had felt peace, calmness, serenity. Other times I felt excited or aroused. That's hard to talk about because I had not even been in the habit of talking about those things with myself.

We would exist in a place of tranquility, peace, and serenity. I tell her, "I can just stay here with you forever."

I left out some details about what had happened when Celta left the hospital. In this chapter, we'll rewind the clock and review some things that I left out.

Celta had a problem with alcohol addiction as well as having anorexia. To a layperson, the word would be alcoholic. When we went to AA later people said "Hi, I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic."

I like the term "Alcohol Use Disorder" better since I am going into the psychiatric field and I prefer more scientific. At this time in the 90s, we used the terms Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Dependence.

Celta had been in the hospital because her weight was dangerously low, and they had to get her to a weight where she wouldn't die within the first thirty days of release from the hospital. Yes, they said that to me.

It was March when she got out of the hospital. I found her intoxicated in a single-room apartment to which she had been released. Her father had left her some money to get started. I couldn't understand the situation. I had bought her a pretty short sleeve shirt with a picture of a cat on it. It was like having a girlfriend to be doing this. She had still been in the hospital when I brought it to her. She had liked it.

Now, seeing her like this, intoxicated, I felt so overwhelmed and frustrated. I pulled out that shirt that I had bought for her because it made her smile. I said, "remember this?" I left the shirt draped over the dresser so she would see it when she did get up.

I had been seeing her every day when she was in the hospital. Now, I wondered if I would find her sober when I showed up.

Again, this was not a conventional relationship.

I was somewhat concerned that my supervisors on the social work team might think I was doing something wrong. I was still new to the field and had not had any specific education that touched on professional ethics. Later in my career journey, I would have avoided this probably. I had told Celta early on that I was not meeting with her as part of the staff. I had always told her that we were friends. If someone had asked me, I would have explained this.

It just had felt like an unusual way to develop a relationship and indeed it had been. Plus, she smoked and normally that would not be attractive at all to me. I hope you understand, dear reader, that I do not judge people based on external characteristics, like physical attractiveness. Despite that, her very low weight did frighten me. She was four foot eleven and weighed about 60 pounds. That is extreme anorexia. This meant that she was all skin and bones.

This is hard to discuss because I know that for a person with anorexia, talking about how thin they are can trigger very negative emotions. I so much want you, dear reader, to know how much I respected Celta and loved her. 

I could see and feel her bones when I held her. Her heart was still beating. When we had been close, I would feel a tingling feeling. If I was sitting next to her, I felt it at the point of contact of our legs, hands, and arms. It felt like a current flowing through me and her. It was almost as if the pulsating beats of our hearts were synchronized and felt everywhere our bodies made contact.

Now, I was so sad. I wanted her to be with me. I told her I would be back the next day. I had gone and bought some food from a Subway fast-food restaurant. I thought I knew what she would like.

When I came back, she seemed so bad. She was passed out. She said she had to leave the apartment because she couldn't pay the rent. I had no clarity of mind to problem solve the situation. I took her to the hospital – a regular hospital not where she had been - because of her weight and condition.

After she was put in a room I left for a little while and headed home. I had to think of something. It seemed like she would be okay at the emergency room for a little while.

I got a call and was told to pick her up. They said they couldn't keep her overnight. I felt my voice assume a voice that was like pleading, and I asked for a little more time and said, "what can I do?"

They said, "we are not responsible for her."

I had been working on jobs – everything from being a busboy to a waiter. My parents made sure to add to my level of shame for not working as an engineer. It was reprehensible. I would have done anything to get a job that would pay me enough to not need them for anything. I hated my parents! And I would have done anything to escape. For anyone to believe that I was stubbornly choosing to not work as an engineer, that person surely must not be a rational person.

I hated them but I had to act cordial and see if I could shake that feeling. Yeah, I hate to say that and I only mean to convey what I felt at the time but I didn't tell out of respect and fear.

Many people overuse the word hate. In my experience as a therapist, it is rarely something that people admit to feeling. It's what you feel when you are exposed to something noxious, or repulsive! That is precisely what I mean when I say that I hated them! I found them repulsive!

She didn't have an apartment and I didn't know what to do when the hospital said that she had to leave. So, I decided to take Celta to a motel in Augusta.

She was sober now. We spoke for some time.

She said jokingly, "you can say that you spent the night with a woman finally."

We had not "slept together" as they say. This day didn't even allow for cuddling.

I said, "I better get home, my parents think I am working. It's weird how Mom suddenly wants me to be around her while I live there. Growing up this was never an issue. Now because I moved in with them, they want to SEE me. I can't say I don't want to SEE you to Mom."

It felt good to laugh about this. We had talked about this unusual situation and would continue to do that. My self-esteem was being dragged down due to the emotional and psychological abuse and so I wanted to avoid my mother as much as possible. My father was more tolerable, but he still went along with and supported my mother's point of view.

The next day I showed up at the hotel and her room. She wasn't in. I walked around frantically looking for her. A light rain was falling. This place didn't look too inviting in the day, as they had not kept up the place too well. I passed people as I looked and listened in the rooms nearby. I was never nosy, but I was feeling desperate.

"Have you seen a small woman?" first upfront at the reception desk and then I asked some people who were walking around.

No one was very helpful.

I walked around the front which faced the highway. I fell to my knees, more like collapsing than praying. Then I said in a voice that was audible but not loud, "Please, please help me."

I walked back around and spotted someone who I had seen earlier. "You are looking for a small woman?" a woman said.

"Yes."

"Come this way. I think she went in a room over here."

We knocked on a door. I saw her in a bed with some guy without her clothes on. What had he done to her? What happened? I could see beer bottles. I must have looked pitiful.

I registered voices saying, "nothing happened, she passed out here." ... "She had been looking for something to drink."

I'm thinking "does she look like someone who should be drinking?" and "what kind of guy is this to take advantage of her?"

I looked away as she dressed. She had looked so boney that she looked extremely unhealthy. At that moment I had a mixture of confusing feelings. I had had romantic and intimate feelings for Celta and I loved her. But seeing her like this was not attractive to me. My reaction around her when I noticed how thin she was from time to time felt embarrassing and confusing. Maybe it was more like I feared for her health than that I was repulsed by her appearance.

Back in her room, I told her that I didn't know what to do. She said her mother lives in Athens, and I said I would take her there. It was about an hour and a half away. We weren't sure that her mother would take her, but I felt like we had to try. Yes, she knew how to get there. I thought "don't call, just go. Just show up."

We found the house and I knocked on the door. Her mother saw us and said, "she can't stay here."

I looked at her pleadingly. "I... I don't know what to do. I tried other things." Tears were running down my face as I said, "I'm scared."

She opened the door and we entered.

"I'm Bruce."

"I'm Faye." Adding, "we've had problems and fought before." She was small herself but not sickly underweight.

"Thank you for helping. I don't know what to do."

I said goodbye to Celta and said I would be back to see her soon.

Her father had come from out of state and rented an apartment for her. There was one more episode of Celta drinking before things settled into relatively normal life. When I say "normal life" I mean she was not drinking. She had gone on what seemed like a binge of drinking and then stopped. There would be one other episode months later but that was it.

This was when I met a couple that was friends of the family. The woman was the one that told me that Celta cannot love people and that she is a user and a manipulator. She warned me not to be an "enabler."

Indeed, people with substance abuse or use disorders can be like that. They can act like sociopaths where they use people, lie, manipulate others, and might appear to act like they don't have morals.

However, I am a bright person, and I am observant when it comes to the actions and intentions of others. Celta was never asking me to do things that I didn't want to do. In fact, I could tell that she was genuinely concerned about how I felt, and she was extremely concerned about my happiness.

Things were about to become more normal shortly after Celta got settled into an apartment in Athens, Georgia. 

I'll pick up this story in the next chapter where the love story begins to take form and shape.

In the last chapter, I mentioned that Celta had moved into an apartment in Augusta, Georgia after leaving the hospital. That didn't go so well. Her problems were an enormous challenge. Her weight was so low that I feared she might die. She was also drinking when she left the hospital. 

I will point out later how our love, her love for me, was influential in helping her to overcome problems that had clearly been part of a long pattern for her life prior to when she met me. Before I get to that, I wanted to describe some more details about what was happening during these next few months. 

After she lost her apartment, I put her up in a hotel one evening but that didn't go well. She couldn't stay there and we had to find a place for her.

Finally, she said she had a mother in Athens Georgia. So, we started driving there.

When we got there and knocked at the door her mother came and her first reaction was to turn her away. I didn't say anything, but I had such a desperate look on my face. It's sad but that might have been very influential in her mother – Faye Head – opening the door and letting her in.

I gave her a hug and got her phone number; told her I would be back to visit as soon as possible.

Soon after that, her father rented an apartment for her in Athens.

I met some other friends of hers and her family. It was curious that one of them, a woman said that Celta only uses people and that she cannot love anyone. This was clearly not true. Celta was doing so much that demonstrated she was thinking of me and concerned about my well-being and happiness.

It's important to note that I was living with my parents at the time. This was a temporary situation. I cannot overstate how profoundly disinterested my parents seemed to be in me and my life, my dreams, hopes, aspirations, and desires!

I loved to hear about Celta's talents. She had studied acting beginning before she was in high school.

It was Sunday. April 15th, a week before my birthday. It was a bit cool this morning as we arrived at the Botanical Gardens in Athens. She had suggested this place.

The sun was passing through the misty morning fog as we walked along a path. I reached out to take her hand, feeling as if something emotional was rippling through me at her touch. It was still early in the day and Celta was wearing a white coat made of soft cotton. I was warm-natured and only had a short-sleeve shirt on.

"Can I take off this glove?" I asked. "My hand will keep your hands warm."

She smiled as we gazed at the misty sun above and ahead. This felt so good and right. I felt awkward at first as I saw another couple. Celta and I were not a "couple" per se. I let the thought go. This felt too good.

Her hand was so very thin. As I mentioned, she had anorexia and was very much underweight. I could feel her tiny fingers intertwined in mine which sent a certain particular feeling flowing up my arm, almost like a chill or a soft rippling stream flowing up my arm. Her smile as she gazed at me gave me butterflies. I felt a lightness, almost like floating. I felt serene. And I smiled back.

What did she see in me, I wondered?

"This is nice... good," I said. Adding with a slight chuckle, "I have always wanted to feel this. I mean even as a kid. It is like a hunger that I forgot that I had or that I was too afraid to acknowledge..." I then added, "maybe acknowledging it would have made life too sad because I would know that I wanted something that wasn't available."

She understood that I was talking about what had been missing in my family. Celta always seemed to know when things had not been going well at home.

We developed synchronicity of mind and thought... respect and love... yes, respect and love felt like it was not something I had known previously. This was strange because Celta and I had what seemed like a completely platonic relationship and I have had supportive friends previously. My friends Thomas and Jo-Lee were real good friends, but the way Celta looked at me was different.

And was it platonic? I mean was it free from sensual desire? It seemed that way but occasionally my body reacted differently... my body was reacting sexually even though this would not have been known to Celta.

What do I mean when I say we developed synchronicity of mind and thought? I don't mean the tired cliché of completing the other person's sentences. The way we looked at the world was the same. The way we felt about things. The way we moved toward one another and the way our expressions were mirrored by each other.

The days and weeks passed, and I kept coming to visit her on the weekends...

Celta could seem to pick up on the emotional pain I had been experiencing during the week, with my parents. It was almost like she had a psychic connection to me. Almost like that!

I could talk to Celta about anything that was happening in my life. How and why, I felt such low self-esteem living with my parents... the emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse I experienced from my parents. I could talk about it all.

Sometimes I didn't need to keep talking about something that was on my mind. I had a sense of being in sync with Celta and a sense that she understood and felt with and for me. So, I let myself rest in the comfort of her arms. For example, in one instance, it would begin with my arm around her at the waist and her arms around my back and we just stayed like that smiling at each other.

All week, whenever I became stressed, bored, or had time to dream, my thoughts went to Celta.

My parents seemed completely unconcerned or uninterested in where I went or what I did with my life. I mean they never asked me.

I spoke to Celta for over an hour, maybe hours on the phone each day. We had only one phone, so it's a miracle that it was possible to find the phone free for that long.

I don't think they heard anything we were saying. I could tell if someone answered another phone.

Celta could tell from my voice if I was having a hard time at "home." No, it wasn't a home for me.

I struggled to explain to my parents that I was doing the best I could to find ongoing gainful employment. Yet, I never felt good enough. They thought I was deliberately refusing to work as an engineer and use my degree. I thought we had gone over that! I was going to use my undergraduate degree to get a graduate degree. They seemed to think I was deliberately sabotaging job interviews!

It was absurd. I would have loved to have a way to get out of that house and live on my own.

Yet, when I saw Celta, it was as if I was ten feet tall. I felt confident, valuable, worthy of love, and important.

Perhaps I was keeping this relationship private in a way - it was mine; she was mine. That sounds like something you might say in a devoted, romantic relationship. Yet wasn't this relationship platonic? Well, it's complicated. When I was with Celta we had not even been kissing. But my body was reacting or responding sexually in subtle ways.

Spring days passed through April and into May and for me it was like I was riding on gentle waves on an ocean – rising and falling – it was so soothing and peaceful. One Sunday or Saturday was like another.

It was an ordinary day in late summer like any other day. Sunday, May 13th. I greeted her with a hug. Instead of parting, we remained in one another's arms. Smiling at one other. It felt so different. I felt at peace... but I had something on my mind that I wanted to share.

"Can you hold me?" I ask indicating her bed. "I want to lie down next to you." There wasn't much room on her bed, but we weren't big. She lay against the wall facing me. My first thought was to curl up into a fetal position, but I turned to face her.

"Something happened?" she said in the form of a question.

"The same things ... my mother... ah actually..." My voice trailed off like a sigh of relief. My breathing slowed. I felt like my muscles were relaxing. I had been feeling restless, but I noticed my body was sinking comfortably into the bed. It suddenly seemed unnecessary to discuss what had been on my mind.

I looked down at her hands to see where they were. She looked at me. I raised her right hand with my right hand, placing my left hand over her hand while turning my eyes up to meet hers. We smiled.

For a few moments, we just looked into each other's eyes. I noticed our breathing was synchronized. I briefly thought I was never good at keeping a beat and let a slightly more amused smile pass across my face which was matched by Celta and from that our smiles drifted back to a more serene smile.

This was hypnotic and I let it last a moment longer. I was lost in her gaze... unaware of anything else. Her eyes looking into mine.

"This feels different to me," I said. "I think I have hungered for this nourishment for as long as I can remember. When I hold your hand, I feel something amazing."

After a brief pause, I added, "I love you."

"I love you too."

On another occasion, I remember how her very incredibly thin body became so evident at one particular moment. It was a warm spring day in early June and Faye, Celta's mother wanted a few photographs of both of us. I wanted copies of the photographs myself. The three of us selected different poses because I wanted to remember and hold onto the image of Celta looking and smiling at me. I needed that so much! It was a passionate hunger that I felt to see that.

Even if the angle that her mother was using to take the photograph could not capture her face or her eyes looking into mine, I would see it. I knew I would see that perspective in my mind's eye when I saw the photo.

Anyway, there was one pose where Faye suggested that I get down on one knee and let Celta sit on my other leg. I remember Celta starting to fall and I was scared. I gasped "grab, hold me" as I tried to find a place to catch her. She had a short-sleeve shirt, and I was aware of her bones around her sides, back, and her arms. I was afraid she might get hurt no matter where I tried to hold her because she was so thin, with hardly any muscle or fatty tissue.

She rested upon my arms and didn't indicate that she had been hurt.

When we were apart, each day we told each other those words "I love you." It was so easy, so natural, and so right. To be honest, I was so excited that I would go first. I guess I am just passionate in that way. But if it was not reciprocated, it wouldn't be as special, or I wouldn't feel such a desire to tell her "I love you."

Sometimes I would put the phone down after talking, lie back, and smile, resting in the serenity and joy of the moment. Picturing her. Reflecting on our shared experiences.

We were both trying to find meaning and direction in life - a purpose. I'm not just guessing. We talked about these things.

At one point she seemed to be searching for something to say about our feelings for each other. She looked up and saw a song playing on the TV. It was called "I Don't Know Much But I Know I Love You" by Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt.

"Yes, indeed!" I said with a smile.

It is hard to overstate how surprisingly disinterested my parents were in anything at all that mattered to me and that included a lack of curiosity as to who it is I that I am speaking to so often... or who I am seeing.

My mother would become so angry at me for "hiding out in my room." Yet, it seemed that both parents had no interest at all in my life! Plus, growing up she never took much interest in me spending quality time with her. It really disgusted me. She brought it on herself by her lack of interest in anything at all about what made me happy or where I was going with my life. It was mind-boggling to me just how any parent could be like this!

This feeling of disgust would come to a head sometime later when my mother reached out her hand to touch me and I recoiled instinctually before I could think about how she might respond to that. It was like realizing I had touched a snake - I have a phobia of snakes. She became so furious and didn't want me staying in her home at all, she was literally spitting and wanted to throw me out that night.

That's all I can remember about that. It was chilling!

The fact that I had an existence apart from her frustrated and angered her. And my father could only go along with his wife's feelings. So, they seemed to criticize everything that I was doing because it wasn't "right" in their minds... as if there is only one right way to do things.

As I mentioned, Celta was picking up on these tensions and how hurtful it was to me. She was visibly sad, disturbed, and angered that anyone would hurt me.

I wondered how many people in the world experienced these kinds of singular experiences. I mean during times that seemed dark, it makes a difference when you have someone who respects, values, and honors you as a person.

I noticed how easy it was to connect to and empathize with Celta as my friend.

I know that the other experiences I had as a psychiatric social worker at Georgia Regional Hospital were extremely positive and rewarding. I could sense that I had developed some amazing communication skills and a capacity for empathy. Patients would tell me this or they would tell my supervisors and they would ask when they would see me again. We shouldn't leave that out of the narrative.

My sense of self-confidence continued to grow as well.

There is something important that I must discuss first before we move further on with my journey of success which we will pick up in the next chapter. 

I stumbled across a high school yearbook photo of Celta Camille Head on Ancestry.com—years after we met—and it sent shockwaves through my body. She would have been sixteen in that photo, radiant with a kind of quiet, haunting beauty. I never knew her in high school. She was eight years older than me. And yet, when we finally crossed paths, it was as if something long dormant had stirred awake.

The few photographs I once had of her—the ones I took in those fragile months we spent together—are gone now, lost before the age of digital backups. That loss still stings. But her memory... her memory has never left me.

When we met, I had just graduated from Georgia Tech, riding high on the belief that the future was mine to conquer. I had mapped it all out: career success, independence, a new life built by my own hand.

Instead, I moved back in with my parents—a decision that would cast a long, oppressive shadow over everything that followed.

Yet somehow, even within that suffocating darkness, a spark ignited.

In 1990, I met Celta.

At the same time, I was volunteering with the social work team at Georgia Regional Hospital, a sprawling state psychiatric hospital. The work was profound, humbling, and exhilarating. It awakened a passion in me I hadn’t known existed: an instinctive call toward psychiatric social work, and toward healing.

I had come so far already. College had been my laboratory of transformation: five years of brutal work to overcome shyness, social anxiety, and an aching sense of isolation. I was ready for professional success. What I wasn’t prepared for was to meet someone who would see me in a way no one ever had.

Celta was that person.

I met her on a cold Wednesday afternoon, January 3rd, 1990. She had been admitted for anorexia, her tiny frame whittled down to less than sixty pounds. Four-foot-eleven and dangerously fragile—and yet when I first saw her, pacing in frustration across the hospital room, she emanated a presence that seemed impossibly larger than her body.

When our eyes met, I felt a strange calm settle over me. Not the fear or clinical distance I might have expected. Just... recognition.

"Hi, I'm Bruce," I said, stepping toward her. "I'm a volunteer with the social work team. I'm off duty now. I just wanted to meet you."

She smiled—truly smiled—and in that moment, a connection was forged.

She suggested we go outside. There was a porch swing out front, and we sat together, side by side, letting the world drift away. For once, I didn’t rehearse my words or second-guess myself. I simply was. And so was she.

I told her I wasn’t there to gather information. "I'm not here in any official way," I said. "I just wanted to talk."

She smiled again. That smile—the way it reached her eyes—felt like an invitation into a world I didn’t know I was longing for.

She listened to me with an intensity that startled me. No one had ever listened to me like that before. Like I mattered. Like my voice wasn’t just tolerated—it was wanted. She made no demands, offered no judgments, and for the first time, I felt seen not as a project to fix, not as a future professional, not as someone who needed to achieve something to matter. I was seen as me.

Celta had very little family support. She spoke only of her parents in passing, and her loneliness hovered around her like a second skin. In her presence, something ancient in me began to heal—the part that had always wondered if I was invisible to the people who should have loved me most.

We sat together almost every day until she was discharged. We walked the grounds. We talked about pansies and how their petals seemed to hold faces, their expressions mirroring our moods. We marveled at small things. I told her stories about my life, and she listened with rapt attention, as if every detail mattered.

And yet, even amid the sweetness of those early meetings, I knew there were risks.

Ethically, there were supposed to be boundaries between patients and staff—even volunteers. Even I, just starting my journey in the mental health field, understood that dimly. And there was another complication: I was still living with my parents. I wasn't free to defend someone I loved if she were judged or criticized. I didn't have the independence yet to say, without fear, "This is someone who matters to me. You don't get a say."

Still, no one on staff ever warned me off. Everyone seemed to sense the purity of what was growing between us.

Celta soon began writing me letters—long, sprawling diary entries where she catalogued the smallest details of her days. Sometimes she mailed them. Sometimes she handed them to me when I visited. She wanted me to know her world. All of it.

It was magical. It was terrifying. It was confusing.

Was I breaching some invisible ethical line? Was I betraying the standards of the field I hoped to build my career in? Maybe. But it didn't feel like exploitation. It didn’t feel like imbalance or coercion.

It felt like love.

She trusted me. I trusted her. We were two broken souls who, for a moment, found wholeness in each other.

In March, two months after we first met, she pointed to a bed of pansies and said, "Look—they have faces." I paused, and for a second, I could see it too. Their petals smiled and frowned back at us, as if the flowers themselves were alive to our joy and our sorrow.

Celta asked me once if I would draw her—how I saw her. I told her I couldn’t draw, but that I could paint her with words. Maybe she wondered if I saw her as beautiful. I did. So much more than beautiful.

Her name, I later learned, was chosen by her father, a nod to Celtic and Gaelic traditions. Her sister’s name, Gael, followed the same theme. There was a kind of poetry to it, as if even in naming, her family had gestured toward something ancient and mythic without realizing it.

When she was discharged, she returned to Augusta, Georgia. Our friendship continued to grow. I worried about her constantly—her health, her loneliness, her future.

I had met her during one of the darkest periods of my own life. And yet through her, a new world cracked open—a world where love wasn’t a reward for performance, but a reflection of being seen, cherished, wanted.

And though I couldn’t have known it then, Celta taught me the first lesson I would need to build the life I later found with Lynn:

That it’s not enough to love. You have to be willing to stand for the people you love.

I wasn’t ready yet. But I was beginning.

In this section, I will describe a very special person who came into my life in 1990. Her name was Celta Camille Head. This was before I met Lynn but it is an important story about my development and the development of this larger story depicted in this book.

It’s impossible to overstate how important, meaningful and life changing this was for me. It might have been just one year but three and a half decades later, every moment, every second of being loved by Celta speaks to me in a way that says I am worthwhile. This reality was not something I would have realized from my family of origin.

In the last chapter, I told you about the joy I found in finding someone to love and someone who loved me. I told you about the experiences I had, and I hope it was clear just how meaningful this was in my life's trajectory. It was so important to present the profound and positive impact this had on my life.  

This was life-altering.   

The experiences I had growing up, in my home environment, were toxic to the development of the kind of self-confidence and self-worth that I would need to achieve my career goals. Something had been missing despite all the improvements I had made in my sense of worth.

It's hard to know what you need to overcome a problem that has existed throughout your life. My therapist or counselor in college was very talented, competent, and profoundly helpful. However, we failed to fully appreciate all the negative impacts of abuse and devaluation that I had experienced in my home life from my parents.  

Then I met Celta, and something happened. She seemed to be delighted in me. She was so interested in my experiences. She also was concerned about my well-being and happiness. I knew she was thinking about me for most of the day each and every day! Her diary-style, stream of consciousness letters told me this.

I knew she was thinking about me for so much of her day, each and every day, because of the letters she wrote to me - her diary of sorts composed with me in mind as someone she wanted to share her life with. I had realized that I previously thought that I was not that important to anyone. This is what I meant by seeking a relationship with some aspect of exclusivity or the idea that I could be the most important person to someone.

I knew that I was the only one that Celta loved the way she loved me. Previously, I had friends, but they all had a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse, or the relationship wasn’t as close.

After I was with Celta, I felt like I was ten feet tall... confident... worthwhile, and deserving. My self-esteem was higher than it had ever been in my life. I also felt safe trying new things. This idea might seem unexpected. She was just a small girl (woman). I sensed that she deeply cared about me and thought about me and that was transformative.

It's important to underscore these important points before I move on with this story.       

When I say that our relationship was platonic, I mean that we were not boyfriend and girlfriend. We didn't have a physical relationship. That being said, we did exchange "I love you" on a daily basis or whenever we talked on the phone or saw each other. We were close and perhaps somewhat intimate and physical but not in a sexual way.

Late in December, something happened. I had moved to kiss her as I was leaving. It was impulsive. Her lips were so thin that I didn’t feel what I imagined I would feel. This was my first kiss. I felt confused. She had not turned away or signaled in any way that she didn’t want me to proceed. So, why was I uncertain? I didn’t have to be shy with Celta. But I didn’t want to use her for my own personal “experience.”

I would play this back in my mind as I drove away. Yes, I wanted to kiss her. Having decided now for sure what I wanted, next time I would kiss her. 

Sometime later I pictured my face turning to the right and moving closer to her as she moved toward me. I had been in sync with her and felt so comfortable. I knew that she might have said that one time that she was not in love but when we were together there were so many times when she had that look of someone who was so happy, comfortable and it sure looked like she was in love. Well, she definitely had “romantic” feelings. 

Also, when I was with her, I could see myself and my feelings. You just know those things. There were so many subtle behavioral cues that told me what she was feeling and how she was responding to my touches… how I held her… where I touched her. Everything had been welcomed. I played back memories of how when I touched her she moved closer to me.

As I replayed the imagined kiss – next time - I would begin to tilt my head to the right, bend down, she would be acting on instinct, without taking the time to over-think it – that’s what I would do, and she was my mirror. Sometimes we do things as if the moment is such that it is inevitable. She would move to meet my lips… she would be transfixed upon my eyes and I hers. I felt excited as I replayed this in my mind. 

It was as if it had happened already, almost. 

It would never happen. 

On New Year's Day of 1991, I got the worst news of my life. A phone call. I was in my room on the second floor of the house owned by my parents. "Celta died last night," I was told.  

"How?"  I asked as if this wasn't possible or real. I was stunned. I wanted my willpower to make it not real!

"There was a fire... she died from smoke inhalation."  It started from an exposed electrical cord on a TV. 

My mind registered information about the funeral, its location, and time but I could not find the words to begin to convey any sense of what I was feeling. I had spoken a few times to the man previously. He was friends of the family. Tears were flooding my eyes. I just said, “Okay, I’ll be there but I can’t talk…” my voice breaking. I needed the family to expect me.

I dropped the phone and began to cry so bitterly.

I hurt so much! 

I cried so much as I drove the way to the funeral. Just before the funeral, I looked at the closed casket and was overcome. Someone was standing by it and for a brief second, some part of me wanted to open the casket and find out that it wasn't Celta that was inside.

At the funeral, I cried more than everyone else combined. I didn't care how I looked.

It was at the Episcopalian church where I went with Celta and where I would sit down next to Celta's mother and Celta. I was still Christian, meaning I went to church on a regular basis.  

Standing outside after the funeral people were talking. I was looking at the closed casket unable to believe this was real. I was still crying. Celta's mother instructed me not to come to the burial. She could tell that I was not going to make it through that event. My state of mind was such that I needed to be told what I should do now.  

At the burial the one person who loved Celta most, who felt a visceral sense of grief above and beyond that felt by the others... that one person would be missing. I would not be there. I had followed the directions of Celta's mother and left Athens (Athens Georgia).

I certainly felt betrayed and abandoned by God. However, I did go to grief counseling at the Catholic hospital in Augusta, Georgia. A nun was leading a grief counseling group – spiritual counseling. She was using guided imagery, relaxation techniques, prayer, and biblical references. I met with her a few times and asked for tape recordings of the sessions. 

In the group sessions, she spoke about the stages of grief. We were encouraged to bring in things that were mementos of our experience with our loved ones. I listened intently as the others spoke. I was by far the youngest. I had studied the grief process in a psychology class at Georgia Tech. I read some more about this from a “clinical” standpoint. I was keeping reality at a distance.

I was in denial at times and at other times I would be overwhelmed with the idea of not being able to see Celta ever again and I would cry and cry. 

So much is strange about this time period. The struggles with my parents were never intentionally instigated by me out of anger for anything. They just seemed uninterested in me and my life, other than to tell me what I ought to do. 

I suppose I wanted to share the fact that someone had loved me to explain what had changed. It was surreal that there was such denial that anything had happened or changed. I might be in denial as a symptom of grief but I wanted to celebrate the relationship that I had. Where would I begin?    

Child Abuse by My Brother John Whealton...

I expected them to be discreet and assumed they would not reveal who called. I wasn’t trying to hurt him and wondered if anything would come of the matter. 

My brother found out and never spoke to me again. 

 I was asked by the agency that looked into the matter to write a piece about the cycle of abuse.

That was in 2002. 

It’s bizarre how things happen. He was the only one in the family who got aggressive in response to our parents' physical abuse or threats of violence, but they chose to invite him and his wife to visit on holidays and disinvite me ever since. Our family is so dysfunctional! I have an adult niece who doesn’t know anything about me.

Anyway, getting back to 1991, to cope with the tragic loss, I started drinking. A lot.

I was put on a tricyclic anti-depressant by a psychiatrist. I had developed panic attacks as well. The anti-depressant had the effect of creating a sense of positive feelings even with my mother standing there one morning ironing something for work with my father getting ready too. Those fake feelings were only transitory. It is reminiscent of the song by REM titled "It's the end of the world as we know it."... and I feel fine. I guess I felt “high.”

The days flowed around me like a mystical experience in which I flowed in and out of my body. I wasn't fully alive or so it seemed... betrayed even by God.  

It was all a blur. My entire existence. 

Somehow, I did get a job finally that could have made my parents satisfied. Everything was always about them. They never asked about anything that was happening to me. So, they never inquired about why I was going for grief counseling because they had no knowledge of this.  

Anyway, I got a job at the National Science Foundation as a contractor. I was developing a network for the museum and that involved network programming in the C programming language. I was a software engineer. I did accomplish a great deal in that job capacity and my supervisor was very impressed with my talents.  

Again, this was not at all interesting to me. Yet, I was making sure that I successfully met all deadlines and deliverables. 

I vaguely remember a summer trip to Las Vegas. The company paid for this to cover some training related to my work. It was amazing. I had this incredible per-diem rate where I was paid my salary plus extra money for expenses that exceeded the cost of the hotel room.  

Vegas was probably the worst place for me to go with so much free cash and free drinks in the casinos. Somehow, I made all the presentations for the training that I was sent there to attend. In the evenings and free time, I hit the casinos and made some decent money. Nothing to write home about. Gin or vodka was an escape but somehow, I didn’t drink so much so as to get sick at night or even the next day.

As I try to write this now, I have only momentary snapshots with no full running narrative memory. Just random disconnected sensations. My hands were unable to touch the leather inside a car. The sun shimmering on the pavement. Casinos. Drinks. Sitting at a poker table. Pulling a lever on a slot machine.

I must have done what was expected of me. I don’t remember any complaints from my boss.

Yeah, I moved through time like a robot.

The job was going well, as I said. I was proud of how well I was doing.

I was drinking more and more during this time period after the trip to Las Vegas. Everything except beer. Vodka with tonic or orange juice. Gin and tonic. Whiskey with ice, water, or coke. Not so much wine.

I was passing out and once or twice I would puke. I really hated throwing up, always.

I did meet this girl from the home office of the company that was paying me. She lived in Alabama and I was in Augusta, Georgia and we decided to meet in Atlanta, Georgia where I had graduated not long before that.         

My supervisor was joking that I had "jungle fever" because I was a white guy who was going to date a black woman. He was black, as well. I didn't let that bother me. Spike Lee's film "Jungle Fever" had been out, and it was an important film. I have always been fine with having a conversation about race if that was something that was desired.  

My mother actually asked about my date. I suppose her name sounded ethnic and my mother asked about that guessing that she might be Italian. I said, "no, she's black.”   

I remember that this was the first time I kissed anyone other than a brief kiss that Celta and I shared back in December of the last year. I mentioned that above. 

This was extremely passionate. She brought her kid and left him in the car and parked near the Student Center - the same building where I worked on the bottom floor in the post office.  

We were looking for someplace to sit or be as private as possible outside after dark. I remember making out at a few locations here and there. I could feel her large breasts against me, and I was aroused.  

My first passionate kiss. Before Lynn. We'll get to that later.

Did I feel guilty about dating so soon after Celta? Maybe. But I wasn’t actually feeling nor was I “aware” during this time period. I was so numb that I needed to feel something. To wake up! I was trying so hard to wake up. The tricyclic antidepressant made me feel good for a few moments. That didn’t make it a meaningful experience. 

Then later there was the fact that she said in December that she loved me but wasn’t in love with me. I had only known her for one year, from January through December 31 or 1990. I do know that countless times she had that look like someone in love when she looked in my eyes. I was fairly certain she was trying to protect me from being hurt. But I never got a chance to ask her.

And that kiss? I had stopped, not her. It was my first time kissing anyone and I should have been aware that her lips were so small that if I didn’t feel anything at first I should wait or stay there. I was always comfortable with Celta. She had never rejected any of my touches. 

My mother had made me feel so not okay and so had my father somewhat. This “date” was a way to get out of the home and to appear normal to my mother. If I was going out with someone from the company that employed my services, it made me appear less worthy of the criticism I had been getting from my parents. That’s how I figured it. It was an escape.

Some people with Borderline Personality Disorder or trauma disorders will cut their own skin with razors or something sharp just to feel something. The date was something like that. 

There wasn't a second date. I had expressed my concerns about pre-marital sex. We weren't even in a committed relationship. I drove to Atlanta to meet her for a second date, but she never showed. I was frustrated out of embarrassment. Then I just forgot the entire matter by the next day and never thought about the matter further.  

The various medications and the alcohol impeded grieving and dare I say reality testing. People who are grieving are in such a state of denial that it is almost like a temporary psychosis. From what I was reading and hearing in the stories of grief that I studied, “normal,” healthy people did for a while embrace denial to such an extent that it bordered on delusional thinking.

The loss of Celta could not be washed away with alcohol, grief counseling, or an intimate date. 

Poetry as an outlet…

I can thank my mother for introducing me to Martin Kirby, who went to our church and he was a professor of English Literature and related subjects at a college in Augusta, Georgia. He would become my writing/poetry mentor.  

I would show up on a regular basis for poetry readings where I shared my poetry and got feedback, advice, and guidance on writing good poetry. He also heard me write about my experiences with Celta and listened to my experiences. This was very helpful because I had no other outlet for this or place to talk about Celta and my relationship with her.

He said he thought it would take about 10 years for me to be able to write good poetry about Celta because the feelings were too raw.

I was living in a difficult environment with my parents.  I was dealing with a major tragedy and yet the name Celta wasn't even being mentioned.  

Between drinking, the different medications I was put on, and the panic attacks, I had to go to the Emergency Room (ER) on two occasions.  

The psychiatrist tried me on a major tranquilizer, and I had these horrifying muscle spasms that twisted my body up into contortions that made me think my bones were going to be broken in my neck and elsewhere. The doctor said that in higher doses the drug is used for psychotic disorders but somehow it would help with my depression, I guess. That was the reason I was taken to the ER once. My father took me.  

Another time I had a panic attack and again my father took me to the ER. It's strange that they weren't asking why all this was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. NEVER!

The only ones listening to my stories about Celta were Martin Kirby and his wife as well as the attendees at the grief support group. Again, my parents were not interested to learn anything about this matter. They never seemed to have any awareness that I was even going to grief counseling.  

This is so utterly astonishing! I had not deliberately been trying to keep everything a secret about what was going on with me. On the contrary, I looked for an opening to discuss the matter. I wanted to repair and improve the relationship. I wanted to share the fact that I had found someone who loved me.  

With all this going on, all the problems I was having, I began to doubt that I could achieve my goals in life, my career goals. I wondered how I could help others when I had so many problems myself.  

It should be noted that while I was put on a major tranquilizer, my psychiatrist NEVER said he thought I was psychotic. We knew I had problems coping with overwhelming stressors.  

There is a positive aspect of this time period of 1990 to 1992 that I did not mention. My parents had friends that had adopted a young girl who was about 12. I have always been great with kids. I love kids and enjoy the chance to be like a big brother.  

I was so impressed that she wasn't shy at all when I first met her. I went to visit with my parents, and they invited us to come swim. It was either 1990 or 1991 when I met her. I was like a big brother and I had a great time doing so many things with her.  

After the job with the National Science Foundation ended, another opportunity presented itself in March of 1992.  I was offered a job in Wilmington, North Carolina, to work with Corning as a Technical Writer. They wanted someone with a technical background. 

This would change everything. I was about to be on my own again. Finally!  

My perception that I had long-term "problems” would disappear as if by magic, literally - it was unbelievable. My problem had been living in a toxic environment and that was complicated by the grief and the effort I had made to ignore, suppress, or deny the natural process.

My own doubts about my ability to achieve my career goals in life were contributing to the problems I was having.

It’s hard to believe that I had only known Celta for one year – the year 1990 and when that year ended, so had Celta’s life.

The tragic loss of Celta did not erase the positive impact she had on my life. There were other positive experiences during this time. I had become more confident.

I had been writing poetry about the experiences I had with Celta and I wanted to share that with others. I had been sharing that with Martin Kirby my poetry mentor but now I wanted to share this with others. It was so important and meaningful!

I left out some details about what had happened when Celta left the hospital. In this chapter, we’ll rewind the clock and review some things that I left out.

Celta had a problem with alcohol addiction as well as having anorexia. To a layperson, the word would be alcoholic. When we went to AA later people said “Hi, I’m Bill and I’m an alcoholic.”

I like the term “Alcohol Use Disorder” better since I am going into the psychiatric field and I prefer more scientific. At this time in the 90s, we used the terms Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Dependence.

Celta had been in the hospital because her weight was dangerously low, and they had to get her to a weight where she wouldn’t die within the first thirty days of release from the hospital. Yes, they said that to me.

It was March when she got out of the hospital. I found her intoxicated in a single-room apartment to which she had been released. Her father had left her some money to get started. I couldn’t understand the situation. I had bought her a pretty short sleeve shirt with a picture of a cat on it. It was like having a girlfriend to be doing this. She had still been in the hospital when I brought it to her. She had liked it.

Now, seeing her like this, intoxicated, I felt so overwhelmed and frustrated. I pulled out that shirt that I had bought for her because it made her smile. I said, “remember this?” I left the shirt draped over the dresser so she would see it when she did get up. 

I had been seeing her every day when she was in the hospital. Now, I wondered if I would find her sober when I showed up. 

Again, this was not a conventional relationship. 

I was somewhat concerned that my supervisors on the social work team might think I was doing something wrong. I was still new to the field and had not had any specific education that touched on professional ethics. Later in my career journey, I would have avoided this probably. I had told Celta early on that I was not meeting with her as part of the staff. I had always told her that we were friends. If someone had asked me, I would have explained this.

It just had felt like an unusual way to develop a relationship and indeed it had been. Plus, she smoked and normally that would not be attractive at all to me. I hope you understand, dear reader, that I do not judge people based on external characteristics, like physical attractiveness. Despite that, her very low weight did frighten me. She was four foot eleven and weighed about 60 pounds. That is extreme anorexia. This meant that she was all skin and bones.

I could see and feel her bones when I held her. Her heart was still beating. When we had been close, I would feel a tingling feeling. If I was sitting next to her, I felt it at the point of contact of our legs, hands, and arms. It felt like a current flowing through me and her. It was almost as if the pulsating beats of our hearts were synchronized and felt everywhere our bodies made contact.

Now, I was so sad. I wanted her to be with me. I told her I would be back the next day. I had gone and bought some food from a Subway fast-food restaurant. I thought I knew what she would like.

When I came back, she seemed so bad. She was passed out. She said she had to leave the apartment because she couldn’t pay the rent. I had no clarity of mind to problem solve the situation. I took her to the hospital – a regular hospital not where she had been - because of her weight and condition.

After she was put in a room I left for a little while and headed home. I had to think of something. It seemed like she would be okay at the emergency room for a little while.

I got a call and was told to pick her up. They said they couldn’t keep her overnight. I felt my voice assume a voice that was like pleading, and I asked for a little more time and saying, “what can I do?” 

They said, “we are not responsible for her.”

I had been working on jobs – everything from being a busboy to a waiter. My parents made sure to add to my level of shame for not working as an engineer. It was reprehensible. I would have done anything to get a job that would pay me enough to not need them for anything. If they believed that I was stubbornly choosing to not work as an engineer, they should be the ones in a psychiatric hospital. 

I hated them but I had to act cordial and see if I could shake that feeling.

Many people overuse the word hate. In my experience as a therapist, it is rarely something that people admit to feeling. It’s what you feel when you are exposed to something noxious, or repulsive! That is precisely what I mean when I say that I hated them! I found them repulsive!

So, I decided to take Celta to a motel in Augusta. 

She was sober now. We spoke for some time.

She said jokingly, “you can say that you spent the night with a woman finally.” 

We had not “slept together” as they say. This day didn’t even allow for cuddling.

I said, “I better get home, my parents think I am working. It’s weird how Mom suddenly wants me to be around her while I live there. Growing up this was never an issue. Now because I moved in with them, they want to SEE me. I can’t say I don’t want to SEE you to Mom.”

It felt good to laugh about this. We had talked about this unusual situation and would continue to do that. My self-esteem was being dragged down due to the emotional and psychological abuse and so I wanted to avoid my mother as much as possible. My father was more tolerable, but he still went along with and supported my mother’s point of view. 

The next day I showed up at the hotel and her room. She wasn’t in. I walked around frantically looking for her. A light rain was falling. This place didn’t look too inviting in the day, as they had not kept up the place too well. I passed people as I looked and listened in the rooms nearby. I was never nosy, but I was feeling desperate.

“Have you seen a small woman?” first upfront at the reception desk and then I asked some people who were walking around.

No one was very helpful. 

I walked around the front which faced the highway. I fell to my knees, more like collapsing than praying. Then I said in a voice that was audible but not loud, “Please, please help me.”

I walked back around and spotted someone who I had seen earlier. “You are looking for a small woman?” a woman said.

“Yes.”

“Come this way. I think she went in a room over here.”

We knocked on a door. I saw her in a bed with some guy without her clothes on. What had he done to her? What happened? I could see beer bottles. I must have looked pitiful. 

I registered voices saying, “nothing happened, she passed out here.” … “She had been looking for something to drink.”

I’m thinking “does she look like someone who should be drinking?” and “what kind of guy is this to take advantage of her?”

I looked away as she dressed. She had looked so boney that she looked like she was starving to death like those pictures from Ethiopia that I had seen on a TV ad. My reaction around her when I noticed how thin she was from time to time felt embarrassing and confusing. Maybe it was more like I feared for her health than that I was repulsed by her appearance. 

Back in her room, I told her that I didn’t know what to do. She said her mother lives in Athens, and I said I would take her there. It was about an hour and a half away. We weren’t sure that her mother would take her, but I felt like we had to try. Yes, she knew how to get there. I thought “don’t call, just go. Just show up.”

We found the house and I knocked on the door. Her mother saw us and said, “she can’t stay here.” 

I looked at her pleadingly. “I… I don’t know what to do. I tried other things.” Tears were running down my face as I said, “I’m scared.”

She opened the door and we entered. 

“I’m Bruce.” 

“I’m Faye.” Adding, “we’ve had problems and fought before.” She was small herself but not sickly underweight.

“Thank you for helping. I don’t know what to do.” 

I said goodbye to Celta and said I would be back to see her soon.

Her father had come from out of state and rented an apartment for her. There was one more episode of Celta drinking before things settled into a relatively normal life. When I say "normal life" I mean she was not drinking. She had gone on what seemed like a binge of drinking and then stopped. There would be one other episode months later but that was it.

This was when I met a couple that was friends of the family. The woman was the one that told me that Celta cannot love people and that she is a user and a manipulator. She warned me not to be an “enabler.”

Indeed, people with substance abuse or use disorders can be like that. They can act like sociopaths where they use people, lie, manipulate others, and might appear to act like they don’t have morals. However, I am a bright person, and I am observant when it comes to the actions and intentions of others. Celta was never asking me to do things that I didn’t want to do. In fact, I could tell that she was genuinely concerned about how I felt, and she was extremely concerned about my happiness.

That is what is so profound about this story. I honestly never knew anyone who was so interested in me and no one had made me so happy. This is an observation I was making as the story moves into April of 1990.

I knew my parents were extremely judgmental of others. So, I was keeping this relationship to myself. I had enough to deal with when it came to them without getting into a fight if they said anything derogatory. Still, their lack of curiosity was strange.

I was calling Celta every night. We talked for at least an hour. At some point in May, I started telling Celta “I love you” every time we spoke. Just as I was saying goodbye with a promise to call the next day and she would answer, “I love you too.” I felt butterflies in my stomach. After I put the phone down, I would look up at the ceiling with a smile on my face.

Most of the time I came on Sundays. She had suggested the Botanical Gardens in Athens. They had a flower bed in front of the main building. In April the pansies were in bloom. I was looking at them holding Celta’s hand as we imagined what kind of expression they had on their yellow or violet faces.

Inside the building, they had exotic plants with different names. Some were trees with variously shaped green leaves. A wide range of flowers. Some of the trees sprouted flowers as well. There was a restaurant upstairs and another downstairs. It always seemed too quiet, and Celta didn’t even mention eating there. We would walk around the grounds most of the time. They had paths or trails with various plants labeled along the way. Along the parking lot, there was a place that was slightly woodsy.

During this time, when we were apart, she continued to compose hand-written letters to me, and we found things to talk about on the phone every day.  

I would treasure those letters. Her letters made me feel like I was with her even when we were apart. I would read them again and again. There is something magical about a person sharing their most intimate thoughts and observations in real-time, uncensored - a stream of consciousness observation.  

"I think it is amazing," I said to Celta.

"What?"

"Well, your letters to me are about your experiences and observations. Yet they feel like gifts to me. I used to think that we should not just talk about ourselves and our own feelings. That's not true."

During this time, I would often go to the Catholic Church with my parents and my brother on Saturday evening. Then I would drive to Athens on Sunday. 

Celta started going to the AA – alcoholics anonymous – meetings in the mornings. I thought that her anorexia and the psychological was equally serious, but I was too new in the psychiatric field to know what would be best for her. She told me to come with her. 

I said, “are you sure I can?”

“Yes, it’s an open meeting.”

“Okay.”

I sat there holding her hand… occasionally looking around… often my eyes rested on her while she seemed to be listening.

Just before the end of the meeting she gestured to get up and said we can go now. She had told me her religion was Episcopalian which is similar to Catholicism which I had known. As we got up and started walking out the front door away from where we parked and toward the church, holding hands, I felt ten feet tall, that feeling I would have with her. 

Sometimes we showed up a bit early and stood outside where they had the meetings. We stood there, arms around each other, looking at each other, lost in words, dreams, and our own world.

One time I stepped away to use a restroom which was in another area and some people were talking. Some of the literature caught my eye. I was feeling a bit out of place though. A guy and a woman approached me. “I’m Linda,” said the woman. The guy said, “Oh, you’re Celta’s boyfriend.”

Without a second thought, I just said “Yes,” and said we are going to church now. I had not even thought about what I had just said until later and it just brought a smile to my face when I reflected upon the moment. For some reason, I didn’t mention that to Celta. 

I walked upstairs and found Celta standing by herself in the hallway. I smiled and wrapped the fingers of my right hand into the fingers on her left hand and we walked toward the doorway passing others who were congregating. It felt like a formal procession. That’s why they assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend. What else would one think?

I would open the doors for both of us hearing the lyrics from the song “Miracles” by Jefferson Starship drifting through my mind.

If only you believe in 
miracles, baby
so would I
{pause}

I might have to move
heaven and earth to prove
it to you, baby

And we walked like this the short distance to the church. I spotted Faye, Celta’s mother and we walked there. I slid down the row and next to her mother with Celta on my right – me in the middle. No one gestured for Celta to sit in the middle next to her mother. 

On another visit, Celta mentioned that she had met a guy named David at one of the AA meetings and asked if we could visit him. I took it like she was reaching out to help someone like I might do the same. He was staying in a residential facility for people with alcohol problems.

When we got there, I noticed the long entrance roadway into the place. It was a nice summer day with the green grass flowing over a gentle hill.

“Were you here before?” I asked her.

“A couple of years ago for about a month.”

We found David and decided to walk a bit toward a shaded area. I reached for Celta’s left hand and she took my hand. I guess I felt a little jealous. She looked at me and just smiled. I managed a smile back.

There was another visit where Celta asked to visit David again. I couldn’t let her down, but I wanted my time with her. No, she wasn’t looking at David like she looked at me. I was a bit surprised at my feelings. I was slightly upset but didn’t say anything. As I took her hand we walked a bit and then she reached out to take David’s hand too with a playful childlike look on her face.

We were near a swing set. “Have a seat, I’ll push you,” I said. 

I pulled her forward a bit and pushed her back. 

David started to talk about something then his voice trailed off. 

I was pushing Celta away and she would return. Not too far, just past the triangular poles of the swing set. Her brown hair caught the sun at the farthest crest – just to the right of her head. Everything was quiet. Our eyes were locked. She smiled that look that said she was happy to be with me. I mouthed the words “I love you” silently, and she smiled, in a rhythm with the swing, as she was closest.

It was hypnotic. We breathed with each cycle of her moving toward me and then away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed David shift a bit almost restless. I then felt bad for him. Celta had not averted her gaze from me. She seemed content. 

After another few moments, I noticed she was wanting to swing higher. I wondered, “could she fall?” and then gently caught her legs and said, “what if you fall?”

She just smiled.

“It’s getting late,” I said.

On another visit, we went to a zoo that was near the Botanical Gardens. They had some black bears, a few monkeys, a few wolves, foxes, a bobcat, snakes, turkeys, dear – not in the same enclosure, of course. It was called Bear Hollow Zoo.

I told Celta that this felt like I was going on a vacation when I came. An escape. A getaway – that’s a good word. 

I got to meet her father too. He was nice and he took some photos of us. 

The time I spent with Celta seemed to sustain me through the workweek.

I have no idea why but there was a period of just over a week in early September where she had another drinking binge. I wasn’t mad, I was mystified by what happened.

Then things seemed normal again with our relationship. I felt comfortable with her. 

It seemed like she picked up on my feelings around this time and the sense that I was hurt and scared. It wasn’t like she intended any harm to me. If she had this problem for all these years and it had been so troublesome to everyone, what was different now?

She seemed a bit off the next time I saw her. I guess it was like she felt shame for her problems and the impact they might have on me. I had mentioned previously how someone who knew the family told me that Celta was just a user and manipulator. Those are words I knew that people say to people like Celta hoping to motivate them to change.

 But she was beating her problems. 

When she had been in the psychiatric hospital, I remember they said they worried that if she died within 30 days of her release, they would be libel. So, it seemed like she had to gain a certain amount of weight. It seemed like they then changed their mind and decided that they can’t keep her forever. It had been a grim prognosis and it offended me. But she had lasted all these months and seemed okay despite being so thin.

It felt like love had saved her – not just my love for her but her love for me – our mutual love.

We began talking about our relationship and the nature of the relationship. She had this pensive look on her face as if she was remembering something as she looked away, out the window. Then she said, “I love you, but I am not in love.”

“Okay, because… I don’t know either what we have.” I answered. “And…” I started to say something. “I don’t know what to say. I haven’t thought about things like this before.” 

It was a late summer day in September. What was my question way back when she had looked up at the TV and saw a video of the song “I don’t know much, but I know I love you?” 

Nothing had changed in the following weeks when I saw her. For example, the following week I came and at one point she took a seat on her bed and I looked down at her smiling with a feeling of joy almost bordering on amusement as I looked into her eyes. She was looking up and she had a look on her face like she was in love or delighted by something. I want to say “hungry”, but she was just looking. 

When I sat down next to her on her bed, I was on her left and I touched her right leg. I was thinking that I wanted to be closer, to feel her body next to mine. She moved her legs over mine. My hand rested against her lower back. Her arms went around me. 

I felt peaceful, serene. Nothing was said. We just smiled at one another. I could feel every place where our bodies touched. It wasn’t exciting but peaceful. I could feel a tingling feeling and chills. Slow and repeated like some wave.

I felt peaceful, serene. Nothing was said. We just smiled at one another. I could feel every place where our bodies touched. It wasn’t exciting but peaceful. I could feel a tingling feeling and chills. Slow and repeated like some wave.

The fall moved into the Georgia area and the air-cooled. The leaves were falling off the trees.

We came to the place where the pathway met the parking lot. I looked up to an area in the trees. I was thinking that it was cool enough that there wouldn’t be any snakes. I gestured to the left. “Up there, it will be a little private for us.” I said adding, “I don’t want to be disturbed by the others.

I was telling her what to me didn't sound very exciting - just something about where I used to go hiking when I was growing up. This somewhat reminded me of that. We had woods behind our house where we lived when I was growing up. I was saying that just behind our house the woods didn’t go very deep. We were unpacking the food we brought.

I looked up and she seemed transfixed with her full and complete attention on me.  

Wow! I almost wanted to ask, "what do you see in me that is so interesting or exciting?" but that didn't seem necessary with Celta or maybe it didn’t seem appropriate to me. We had a connection. Wow! What was it that was happening? I had never noticed anyone so interested in me. It was almost as if I had hypnotized her.

Later, I would think, “that was a moment I should capture in a poem.”

How did holding hands feel so special? Or her listening to me with interest? Or how can non-sexual touching feel so powerful?  

Moments later we were walking hand-in-hand. My mind drifted to the various feelings that I had. Sometimes I had felt peace, calmness, serenity. Other times I felt excited or aroused.  That's hard to talk about because I had not even been in the habit of talking about those things with myself.     

We would exist in a place of tranquility, peace, and serenity. I tell her, "I can just stay here with you forever."

I found the above photograph, a high school yearbook photograph - Celta Camille Head through Ancestry.com. I had not known her in high school. In fact, she is 8 years older than me.  

In this photograph of her, she is 16. She's thirty-one now when I meet her for the first time.

After I graduated from Georgia Tech, I was feeling good about my career prospects and I had a new direction in life. I had a clear path in front of me. I finally knew what I wanted and how to get where I was going ... or so it seemed upon graduation from Georgia Tech in December of 1989. 

The problem was that I chose to move in with my parents after graduation. This would be a decision that haunted me for the rest of my life! 

Ironically, just as I somewhat regretted my decision to move in with my parents, knowing how toxic they were, what began in the 90s would make this time period among the best years of my life. I'm talking about the chance I had to meet Celta in 1990. Also, the opportunity that I had to volunteer with the social work team at Georgia Regional Hospital - a state psychiatric hospital was so rewarding. I learned so much and I realized that I have a knack for this kind of work - psychiatric social work. 

The work I had done in undergraduate school got me to this point. I knew that I had developed some powerful social and communication skills during my five years of undergraduate studies. I had learned to demonstrate empathy. I had overcome so much of the social anxiety that I had previously. 

I want to tell you about someone special that I met. 

I knew that some work needed to be done before I could begin to realize my dreams and to find success in my field. I was making a transition from having a degree in engineering to working as a social worker, a psychiatric social worker. 

As I was saying, I met Celta in 1990. In an earlier chapter, I stated that I had only one date during my years at Georgia Tech. There was one other time when I went out with a girl who was a cousin of one of my best friends but we had only one date. That was my entire dating experience since I was too shy to date in high school. 

I wasn't expecting anything special or amazing to happen in 1990. 

I met Celta in an unusual setting. She had been in the hospital when I met her, making this story even more complicated, unexpected, and unplanned. She had anorexia. That is why she was in the hospital for a short while - her weight had gotten dangerously low. She was about five foot two and weighed under 60 pounds when I met her. Maybe less!

Even as I write this, I feel a bit uncomfortable mentioning these facts. How can one measure a person or their worth by their weight? 

I had a cousin who suffered from anorexia and one of the medical interns mentioned Celta saying that maybe by becoming friends with her I might gain some insight into anorexia. This was different than my usual role as a volunteer with the social work team at the hospital. I will discuss that later. 

The idea was that I could be friends with someone, or I could meet with someone as a member of the social work staff. Intuitively I knew that these boundaries are important.

It was Wednesday, January 3, 1990. I walked into a room at the hospital and saw her pacing. She seemed frustrated. I remember how they had dragged her to another building to be weighed. As our eyes met, I could feel a sense of serenity and peace. 

This wasn't how I imagined this moment. In my imagination, I had thought about ways I could get to know her and gain some insight into a mysterious disorder called anorexia. I had not been assigned to do a social work assessment on her so I wasn't approaching her in that capacity. 

At this moment, I did not feel any sense of pressure to make an excuse to talk to her. My mind was at peace. What was it that I felt? 

A smile washed across her face as if it hasn't been there in a long time. Maybe this was my own impression of what life must have been like for her for a long time. I wondered what she was thinking as I moved toward her.

"Hi, I'm Bruce," I said, "I am a volunteer with the social work team, but I am finished with that for the day. I wanted to meet you." 

"Hi," she answered. Her smile remained the same. I noticed that she didn’t seem to be responding as she usually does when she is approached by members of the staff.   

"Can we talk?" I ask her.

"Do you want to go outside?" she asked me. 

There was a swing outside where two people can sit together. It reminded me of the one that my grandparents had on their porch. 

I realized that at this moment I was not brainstorming or rehearsing things to say as I usually did when I met someone new. For the first time in my life, I was meeting a person and not feeling fearful or timid! 

Sitting there on the swing, outside seemed almost like we had privacy, as much as was possible to have when you are out in the open.

I explained that I am not here to gather information. "This isn't my job." 

She just smiled. 

"You seem almost happy," I said, jokingly. 

"I will be here for a while," she said with a bit of a laugh that conveyed a sense of resignation to her situation. She then explained that she had been in the hospital before.   

I would visit her almost every day just before she was discharged. We would walk around the grounds and I began to tell her things about myself and my own experiences in life. I think she enjoyed listening to me and sharing even the most mundane events. There was no one else that she described as being part of her life other than a mother and father.

She listened intently... with concern and interest. 

Before long she was writing letters - diary entries of everything she observed... the smallest details all laid out for me like some running conversation. Sometimes she mailed the letters to me and other times when I showed up, she gave me the letters.

It did feel a bit awkward because I had not thought that I was coming here to make a friend and I wasn't sure that doing so was okay. I was just starting out in the field. Before long, it seemed like the patients and staff knew we were friends. I was Celta's friend, and I also was part of the social work team/staff. Those were two entirely different roles.

It was March and just two months had passed. "I want to show you something," Celta said, inviting me to walk. "See how they have faces?" she said pointing to some pansies. 

I found myself momentarily making out the expressions on the human-like "faces" on the flowers.

On the next few visits, I noticed that the pansies seemed to smile or frown at us as we gazed upon them as if they reflected our feelings that day.  

Celta had asked me to draw an image of how I saw her. I laughed and said that I cannot draw, but I asked if I could draw the picture with words.  

I learned that her name was chosen mainly by her father who was interested in Celtic and Gaelic history. Her sister's name was Gael, as in Gaelic.  

She returned to Augusta, Georgia when she was well enough to leave the hospital. Our friendship was growing. Her financial situation was a big problem, and I was worried about her. She was so thin, and I was so worried about her health because it was obvious to me that she was at an unhealthy weight. I put her up in a hotel one evening but that didn’t go well.

Finally, she said she had a mother in Athens Georgia. So, we started driving there. 

When we got there and knocked at the door her mother came and her first reaction was to turn her away. I didn’t say anything, but I had such a desperate look on my face. It’s sad but that might have been very influential in her mother – Faye Head – opening the door and letting her in.

I gave her a hug and got her phone number; told her I would be back to visit as soon as possible. 

Her father rented an apartment for her in Athens.

I met some other friends of her and her family. It was curious that one of them, a woman said that Celta only uses people and that she cannot love anyone. This was clearly not true. Celta was doing so much that demonstrated she was thinking of me and concerned about my well-being and happiness.  

It's important to note that I was living with my parents at the time. This was a temporary situation. I cannot overstate how profoundly disinterested my parents were in me and my life, my dreams, hopes, aspirations, and desires!  

I loved to hear about Celta's talents. She had studied acting beginning before she was in high school.  

It was Sunday. April 15^th, my birthday. It was a bit cool this morning as we arrived at the Botanical Gardens in Athens. She had suggested this place.  

The sun was passing through the misty morning fog as we walked along a path. I reached out to take her hand, feeling as if something emotional was rippling through me at her touch. It was still early in the day and Celta was wearing a white coat made of soft cotton. I was warm-natured and only had a short-sleeve shirt on.

"Can I take off this glove?" I asked. "My hand will keep your hands warm."  

She smiled as we gazed at the misty sun above and ahead. This felt so good and right. I felt awkward at first as I saw another couple. Celta and I were not a “couple” per se. I let the thought go. This felt too good.

Her hand was so very thin. As I mentioned, she had anorexia and was very much underweight. I could feel her tiny fingers intertwined in mine sent feeling up my arm, almost like a chill or a soft rippling stream flowing up my arm. Her smile as she gazed at me gave me butterflies. I felt a lightness, almost like floating. I felt serene. And smiled back.

What did she see in me, I wondered?    

"This is nice... good," I said. Adding with a slight chuckle, "I have always wanted to feel this. I mean even as a kid. It is like a hunger that I forgot that I had or that I was too afraid to acknowledge..." I then added, "maybe acknowledging it would have made life too sad because I would know that I wanted something that wasn't available."

She understood that I was talking about what had been missing in my family. Celta always seemed to know when things had not been going well at home.   

We developed synchronicity of mind and thought... respect and love... yes, respect and love felt like it was not something I had known previously. This was strange because Celta and I had a completely platonic relationship and I have had supportive friends previously. My friends Thomas and Jo-Lee were real good friends, but the way Celta looked at me was different. 

And was it platonic? I mean was it free from sensual desire? It seemed that way but occasionally my body reacted differently.

What do I mean when I say we developed synchronicity of mind and thought? I don’t mean the tired cliché of completing the other person’s sentences. The way we looked at the world was the same. The way we felt about things. The way we moved toward one another and the way our expressions were mirrored by each other.

The days and weeks passed, and I kept coming to visit her on the weekends…

Celta could seem to pick up on the emotional pain I had been experiencing during the week, with my parents. It was almost like she had a psychic connection to me. Almost like that!  

I could talk to Celta about anything that was happening in my life. How and why, I felt such low self-esteem living with my parents... the emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse I experienced from my parents. I could talk about it all.

Sometimes I didn’t need to keep talking about something that was on my mind. I had a sense of being in sync with Celta and a sense that she understood and felt with and for me. So, I let myself reset in the comfort of her arms. It would begin with my arm around her at the waist and her arms around my back and we just stayed like that smiling at each other.

All week, whenever I became stressed, bored, or had time to dream, my thoughts went to Celta.

My parents were completely unconcerned or uninterested in where I went or what I did with my life. I spoke to Celta for over an hour, maybe hours on the phone each day. We had only one phone, so it's a miracle that it was possible to find the phone free for that long. 

I don't think they heard anything we were saying. I could tell if someone answered another phone. Celta could tell from my voice if I was having a hard time at "home."  No, it wasn’t a home for me. 

I struggled to explain to my parents that I was doing the best I could to find ongoing gainful employment. Yet, I never felt good enough. They thought I was deliberately refusing to work as an engineer and use my degree. I thought we had gone over that. I was going to use my undergraduate degree to get a graduate degree. They seemed to think I was deliberately sabotaging job interviews! It was absurd. I would have loved to have a way to get out of that house and live on my own.  

Yet, when I saw Celta, it was as if I was ten feet tall. I felt confident, valuable, worthy of love, and important.    

Perhaps I was keeping this relationship private in a way - it was mine; she was mine. That sounds like something you might say in a devoted, romantic relationship. Yet the relationship was completely platonic.

Spring days passed through April and into May and for me it was like I was riding on gentle waves on an ocean – rising and falling – it was so soothing and peaceful. One Sunday or Saturday was like another. 

It was an ordinary day in late summer like any other day. Sunday, May 13^th. I greeted her with a hug. Instead of parting, we remained in one another's arms. Smiling at one other. It felt so different. I felt at peace… but I had something on my mind that I wanted to share.

"Can you hold me?" I ask indicating her bed. "I want to lie down next to you." There wasn’t much room on her bed, but we weren’t big. She laid against the wall facing me.  My first thought was to curl up into a fetus position, but I turned to face her. 

“Something happened?” she said in the form of a question.

“The same things … my mother… ah actually…” My voice trailed off like a sigh of relief. My breathing slowed. I felt like my muscles were relaxing. I had been feeling restless, but I noticed my body was sinking comfortably into the bed. It suddenly seemed unnecessary to discuss what had been on my mind.

I looked down at her hands to see where they were. She looked at me. I raised her right hand with my right hand, placing my left hand over her hand while turning my eyes up to meet hers. We smiled. 

For a few moments, we just looked into each other’s eyes. I noticed our breathing was synchronized. I briefly thought I was never good at keeping a beat and let a slightly more amused smile pass across my face which was matched by Celta and from that our smiles drifted back to a more serene smile.

This was hypnotic and I let it last a moment longer. I was lost in her gaze… unaware of anything else. Her eyes looking into mine.

"This feels different to me," I said. "I think I have hungered for this nourishment for as long as I can remember. When I hold your hand, I feel something amazing."

After a brief pause, I add, "I love you."

"I love you too."   

On another occasion, I remember how her very incredibly thin body became so evident at one particular moment. It was a warm spring day in early June and Faye, Celta’s mother wanted a few photographs of both of us. I wanted copies of the photographs myself. The three of us selected different poses because I wanted to remember and hold onto the image of Celta looking and smiling at me. I needed that so much! It was a passionate hunger that I felt to see that. Even if the angle that her mother was using to take the photograph could not capture her face or her eyes looking into mine, I would see it. I knew I would see that perspective.

Anyway, there was one pose where Faye suggested that I get down on one knee and let Celta sit on my other leg. I remember Celta starting to fall and I was scared. I gasped “grab, hold me” as I tried to find a place to catch her. She had a short-sleeve shirt, and I was aware of her bones around her sides, back, and her arms. I was afraid she might get hurt no matter where I tried to hold her because she was so thin, with hardly any muscle or fatty tissue.

She rested upon my arms and didn’t indicate that she had been hurt.

When we were apart, each day we told each other those words "I love you." It was so easy, so natural, and so right. To be honest, I was so excited that I would go first. I guess I am just passionate in that way. But if it was not reciprocated, it wouldn’t be as special, or I wouldn’t feel such a desire to tell her “I love you.”

Sometimes I would put the phone down after talking, lie back, and smile, resting in the serenity and joy of the moment. Picturing her. Reflecting on our shared experiences.

We were both trying to find meaning and direction in life - a purpose. I'm not just guessing. We talked about these things.

At one point she seemed to be searching for something to say about our feelings for each other. She looked up and saw a song playing on the TV. It was called "I Don't Know Much but I Know I Love You" by Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt.

"Yes, indeed!" I said with a smile.  

It is hard to overstate how surprisingly disinterested my parents were in anything at all that mattered to me and that included a lack of curiosity as to who it is I that I am speaking to so often... or who I am seeing.  

Kathy, my mother, (as I write this, I have divorced myself from my so-called parents) would become so angry at me for "hiding out in my room." Yet, it seemed that both parents had no interest at all in my life! Plus, growing up she never took much interest in me spending quality time with her. It really disgusted me. She brought it on herself by her lack of interest in anything at all about what made me happy or where I was going with my life. It was mind-boggling to me just how any parent could be like this!

This feeling of disgust would come to a head sometime later when Kathy reached out her hand to touch me and I recoiled instinctually before I could think about how she might respond to that. It was like realizing I had touched a snake - I have a phobia of snakes. She became so furious and didn’t want me staying in her home at all, she was literally spitting and wanted to throw me out that night.

That’s all I can remember about that. It was chilling!

The fact that I had an existence apart from her frustrated and angered her. And my father could only go along with his wife’s feelings. So, they seemed to criticize everything that I was doing because it wasn't "right" in their minds... as if there is only one right way to do things.   

As I mentioned, Celta was picking up on these tensions and how hurtful it was to me. She was visibly sad, disturbed, and angered that anyone would hurt me.      

I wondered how many people in the world experienced these kinds of singular experiences.  I mean during times that seemed dark, it makes a difference when you have someone who respects, values, and honors you as a person?  

I noticed how easy it was to connect to and empathize with Celta as my friend.  

I know that the other experiences I had as a psychiatric social worker at Georgia Regional Hospital were extremely positive and rewarding. I could sense that I had developed some amazing communication skills and a capacity for empathy. Patients would tell me this or they would tell my supervisors and they would ask when they would see me again. We shouldn’t leave that out of the narrative. 

My sense of self-confidence continued to grow as well.   

There is something important that I must discuss first before we move further on with my journey of success which we will pick up in the next chapter.