I completed my Masters degree at L_____ University through an off-campus modality. Back in the “dinosaur days,” and
before students had access to online coursework, we viewed video tapes which
contained our professors’ lectures, and completed our course tests under the
supervision of a local person appointed and anointed to administer them. During
the process of completing our off-campus degree programs, we were required to
attend a couple of on-campus modular courses which lasted a week.
At this writing, Readers, I don’t recall the
title of the course in which I was enrolled at the time, but I do recall
another counseling student by the name of Randy. (His last name escapes me now,
though we kept in touch for a while after graduation.)
We were given an assignment to break up into two
person “groups” one day. This would be the first time ever to practice our
eventual “stock in trade.” We were allowed to bring up any issue to the
opposite student and elaborate, and then it became their turn to encourage,
guide or advise the initial student.
Randy shared something with me in relation to his
needs or issues, and I followed up with some sage advice, or at least some
ad-lib wisdom, (or lack thereof.) Now it was my turn to “play the client.”
“Randy, I never shared this with anyone other
than my wife. But I was born in the Congo. My parents were missionaries there,
and they sent me away to an international boarding school, a couple hundred
miles away. While I was at school, there was an uprising by a particular tribe
there which had a terrible reputation for violence. Dad and Mom were taken for
ransom. My parents’ denominational leaders received a couple of letters written
by my dad while he and my mom were being held hostage.
Daddy begged them to pay
the $200,000 ransom. Well, the missionary board they worked under had a policy
that, should missionaries ever be taken hostage, a ransom would never be paid,
since payments only encouraged further hostage taking. The Congolese National
Army sent hundreds of troops into the jungle to find and rescue my parents,…
but they were never found. (I began to tear up.) Randy, … I never saw my
parents again.”
My “counselor” sat there silent, with beads of
sweat forming on his brow. And then he shook his head from side to side, as if
musing how to respond to such a heinous memory.
I continued my unfinished story.
“Well, my friend, I’ve often thought about my
parents, whether they had been tortured, if they were dead, or still alive out
there somewhere. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of them, and you know, I
wondered. Then a couple months ago, I was at my local flea market. I was
looking through the odds and ends at this booth, and then that one. So, I walk
up to this one really exotic booth. I mean it had stuff from different parts of
the world. And then I see the wierdest stuff hanging from these strings
attached to a display. Shrunken heads. There were maybe 12 or 15 of them.
Now,
this really got my attention. It’s not every day you see authentic shrunken
heads. I considered buying one, ‘cause I was sure it would look really cool in
my future counseling office. I was making a decision which one to buy when I
noticed that two of the heads looked very
familiar. And then I realized why. Randy, I was looking into the faces of my…
parents! I fainted right there on the spot.”
Randy’s mouth was hanging down to his chest by
this time. His eyes were transfixed. His respiration was hardly negligible. He
looked like a mannequin.
I continued.
“Well, my compatriot, after another customer
managed to get me to my feet, I decided then and there that my parents weren’t
going to be a part of that freak show, and not any ‘Joe Blow’ was going to
purchase their heads. Randy, I bought them. I know it must seem peculiar, but I
treasure them. I haven’t made up my mind whether to make some sort of shrine
for them at home, or whether to hold a memorial service and invite some of my
relatives and their old missionary friends.”
“I’d really like some help with this decision.
What do you think I should do?”
As Randy attempted to regain his composure, and
“hemmed and hawed” around, the morbid look on my face quickly disappeared, and
I almost shouted...
“GOTCHA!!!”
By
William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 30, Copyright pending
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