The Reflections essay in this month’s AJN is by LaRae Huyck, a psychiatric mental health NP. In this one-page story with a dramatic COVID-era twist, she explores her years accompanying a young counseling patient from suicidal depression during adolescence to joyful engagement with life as she heads out into the world on her own. Writes Huyck:

The time I spent with her seems so short, but in actuality it made up nearly a fourth of her life. We had traveled though the awkward adolescent years, the landmine of her parents’ divorce, the loss of a beloved grandmother, and a failed relationship that ended her dreams of a prom date.”

The healing power of a therapeutic relationship.

“The Importance of Time” adroitly summarizes this journey, revealing the author’s compassion for this young woman and her hopes for her as well. It’s a story of healing and growth that reveals the good that therapeutic relationships coupled with medication can do for some patients.

The pandemic gets all too real.

Then the narrative zeroes in on a moment early in the current pandemic when something seems to have gone very wrong. What endures throughout this vivid and strange scene as it unfolds, and what lasts beyond it, is the strong connection with and sense of responsibility for this patient the author feels. We see that this is something the physical barriers of social distancing can’t easily erase.

Muses Huyck:

“I had a new appreciation of the unrelenting nature of time. In all the moments we had shared, I had been given the gift of her time and she had had mine. I had not lied to her in all those hours along the way….”

Reflections essays in AJN are free during the month of publication.