Читать книгу Vicarious Healing - Cathy L. Bagley MD - Страница 3

This book came about after an eventful excursions on my way to work after over South Carolina's breathtaking Courson-Tate Crossing in the Low-country. Marshes flaunted a curious collection of snowy egrets blanketing as far as the eyes could see. Tourists occupied soft shoulders flanking the busy highway to marvel at an unusual sea of white, dazed birds. Still, quiet, statuesque egrets stared in the direction of fidgety, loud, clumsy tourists who returned answered with perplexed gazes.

An overflowing clinic with anxious staff awaited my arrival. Guiltily, I swallowed up as much of this unusual scene as possible feeling somewhat roguish upon noticing my odometer reading registered ten miles per hour less than the minimum legal speed limit.

The scene occupied my thoughts that day despite insufficient time to stop and fully take it in. But, for the minute or so my mind, akin to dried bread, was permitted to sop up the scene's rich gravy, it apparently absorbed enough! Between timed clinic lavatory getaways; hospital rounds, operations, deliveries, this piece resulted with cathartic consequences for me. There's perhaps a little Doe inherent in all achievers. It's not enough to partake of life's cake and eat it too; it's meant to be sliced and shared with others.

Success is intricate... like an onion, its construct consists of many layers, which at first glance, may appear healthy while concealing a diseased core! Those seemingly in possession of everything anyone could ever want are considered successful by many observers. But, are they really? Are successful people, by definition, content and self-fulfilled? Would they describe themselves as successful? Do they continue setting, then striving for goals until, by their own standards, they measure up to self-perceived ideas of success? What a conundrum! Perhaps, solutions lie ahead in this story about to unfold...

Attorney John Doe of D-Legal & Associates, LLC was considered a successful self-made man in South Carolina's Low-country and many parts beyond. He perceived himself a whole, solid man proud of the many fruit earlier struggles bore him. That the attorney attained and maintained grand societal standing hailing from modest beginnings made him believe a man in America could accomplish anything he set his mind to do. The only ones prouder of his accomplishments were his practice's founding partners seeing him as their prodigal son. Attorney Doe refused to be humbled by life. He'd simply find the humor in any would-be humbling situation and laugh his way out of it.

Unbeknownst to the attorney, the last laugh to be had wasn't his for he would soon shatter! Prestige's acquisition always exacted a sooner or later toll as in Attorney Doe's instance. Life's theater would no longer provide applause; his successes would no longer provide consolation as he involuntarily embarked on a fortuitous, painfully tortuous path of discovery, redemption and reclamation. Peace came again but only after revelation, then acknowledgement of deeply buried truths. These monumental steps enabled him to discern and collect worthwhile remains from a fragile and fragmented past life. Consequently, a composite of older refurbished scattered and newly constructed gathered parts gave way to a new, more fortified man on his sojourn to redefine success and its notions.