All these years later,
I wondered if he still lived.

He died in 2014.
Cancer.

The obituary tells me nothing.

He was a kind,
thoughtful, compassionate man.

A physician
with a passion for homeopathy.

I climbed the old, groaning stairs
to his tiny second-floor office
in midcoast Maine.

Wood everywhere.

The staircase.
The door.
His desk.

There was no receptionist.

Only him,
welcoming me in.

Big soft hands.
Warm eyes.
Presence.

He gave me remedies –
tiny pills
that dissolved beneath my tongue.

And then,
I dreamed.

And then,
he listened.

Like a clean, polished mirror.

I went to him
for nearly two years,

until we both knew
some of the deepest snags
had finally loosened,

and I walked back
into a life
that now felt,

as if for the first time,

like my own.