Brief Encounter – Edith

I hardly knew her, but 25 years later I can still picture her. She was the only English woman in my class of 45 Pakistan parents I was teaching in Karachi. I see her now, sitting on my right, two rows from the back. She seemed to hang onto every word. She engaged in the role-plays with intensity. The topics of active listening and honest self-disclosure seemed to especially to her attention.

On about the third day she spoke with me briefly during a break and asked if we could arrange for a longer interview. Of course. We set that up. When we met she spoke of the importance of being listened to and of the deep pain of not having anyone with whom one can be totally open.

Slowly she poured out her story.; She was one of two wives of a Pakistani gentleman. This was perfectly legal. The other wife was Pakistani. Her husband was kind to her and not like other husbands she knew who beat their wives. He provided for her and even gave her an adequate allowance to purchase personal items. Yet, she said, she was missing something. She knew that she was “number 2 “ in the relationship. She knew that she was never fully accepted into his family. She knew some of her husband’s friends asked him about her and asked some painfully intimate questions about the relationship. She said she could endure all of this.

But what was most difficult for her was that there was no one, absolutely no one with who m she could share her experiences, her thoughts, her feelings., her longings. Nor was there anyone who would just listen without judgment, moralizing, advising, or even blaming. So we talked for a log time and she felt free to release what had been building up in her for more than two decades.

She came to see me again after the last session. She said to me, “There is one place I can express my self. I write poetry. And I collect the poetry of others who share my feelings. I have actually compiled them into a little book of which I have only a very small number. I would like to give you a copy of that book if you would accept it.”

In my retirement I have disposed of almost all of the thousands of books I have owned in my lifetime. The one given to me by Edith I hang on to.