He felt that he found out something
significant about himself when his
frustration at feeling a need to be
continually coping very nicely and
the exhaustion, which inevitably
results, intersected. It occurred as
he tried awkwardly, clumsily to
step over the dog who sat at his feet
in an act of affection on the dog’s
part but which occasioned a preci-
pitating event — an act of misplac-
ed aggression, an outburst of anger,
which had nothing whatsoever to
do with the dog but which had every-
thing to do with that existential
intersection between frustration and
exhaustion. The dog didn’t understand,
his wife didn’t understand, and being
unable to articulate reality, he just
got angrier, which sent the dog scurry-
ing for cover and turned his wife mo-
mentarily to stone. And then, in anoth-
er existential intersection, which seem-
ed like a flash of a camera or the pro-
verbial light bulb of insight over a
cartoon character’s head, he clearly
saw his fear — that of a little boy,
and what he had caused — his wife’s
fear and his dog’s fear. But he wasn’t
a little boy. He was an old man, a vul-
nerable, scared, old man who couldn’t
articulate his need. If only he had
monitored himself, his legitimate cop-
ing but his growing anxiety that things
might not go as expected, the signifi-
cant stress of recent events and had
said in a calm voice or, for that matt-
er, a quaking voice with tears running
down his cheeks, “I’m scared.” If
only….