Dear Jane

by Jane Seskin, LCSW

She sends me

a Mother’s Day card

every year

since I left my hospital office,

more than a decade ago.

***

I met her on the phone.

She told me her husband

was holding a gun to her head.

My office sent the police.

***

She became a client

in individual treatment

and joined a group I led

for battered women.

***

Over the years she left

her husband, went to school,

found employment, saw two

children graduate college,

and became a volunteer

advocate in our program

for crime victims.

***

And every year she sends

me a Mother’s Day card

with the same message:

“Dear Jane,

You gave me a life.

Thank you!”

***

And I write back:

“Dear Frannie,

It was waiting for you!

My Best, Jane.”

Jane Seskin, LCSW, (www.olderwisershorter.com) is a psychotherapist and writer. Her poetry collection about her work, Witness to Resilience: Stories of Intimate Violence (Second Edition: 2016), is available on Amazon.