The Choice

you safe to go home?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s going to be uncomfortable for you without a gun. Do you have
somewhere else to go if the rage comes back? If you feel like you have
to hurt or kill someone?”
He said he could go to his friend’s house, the one who had told him
about the affair and advised him to see me.
“We need to practice what you will say to your wife.” We made a
script. He wrote it down. He would tell her, “I feel so sad and upset. I
hope we can ĕnd a time to talk about it tonight.” He wasn’t allowed to
say more until they were alone together, and only then if he could
communicate with words instead of violence. He was to call me
immediately if he felt incapable of going home. If the homicidal
feelings came back, he was to ĕnd a safe place to sit down or take a
walk. “Close the door. Or go outside. Be by yourself. Breathe and
breathe and breathe. e feelings will pass. Promise me you will call
me if you start to feel out of control. Get yourself out of the situation,
make yourself safe, and call me.”
He started to cry again. “No one ever cared about me like you do.”
“We’re going to be a good team together,” I told him. “I know
you’re not going to let me down.”
Jason came back to my office two days later, and so began a
therapeutic relationship that would last for ĕve years. But before I
knew how his story would turn out, I had a turning point of my own
to confront.
Once Jason le and I had stowed the gun and sat down in my
chair, breathing deeply, slowly, regaining my calm, I sorted through
the mail my assistant had given me just before Jason’s unexpected
arrival. And there I found another letter that changed the course of
my life. It was from U.S. Army chaplain David Woehr, a former
colleague at William Beaumont, who was then heading the Religious