Dear G – Replica part 1

I want to say that I do not know what took me this long to write to you, but I do know why. It was not easy to write my first letter to Joe but writing to you is another story. How come? 

Joe became a reflection of combination of me and someone I used to love. I saw multiple layers of my past and present, including my pride, shame, love, and pain that penetrated my soul and heart. That’s probably why I miss him and search for his presence daily. On the other hands, you are like my replica. 

Initially, I saw many of my clients who might have become victims of stigma against mineral illness. Maybe even victims of sexual crime against women, especially women of color. I often thought that I wanted to do good to others, just like my belief toward my professional ethic say: do no harm. However, I did not  know what I could have done to others until I met you, Joe, and other people at the place where we met.

Without knowing, I might have put them into a place against their will because I also diagnosed them as being “dangerous to self and others.” I could have misdiagnosed them. It hurts to the core of me whenever I think of you and our shared place where we met unexpectedly. At times, I doubt about my work, my learnings and skills. Of course this is not the first tine I felt this way. This time… it is completely different to a point where i seriously considered to leave my profession where I poured my heart over twenty years, away from my families in Korea. 

However, I ended up falling in love with you and Joe, whom planted another small seed in me when I thought I was dead, figuratively speaking. I still believe in the social science and the medical system at large. I still believe goodness in human being although sinfulness deeply impacted us. I search for those complex, subtle, and mystic common places between good/evil, right/wrong, and black/white.  Without you two and our shared place where we met, I would not know how I could sit with my clients daily and feel that I am incredibly blessed to be their sounding board. If I were to be born again, I would not hesitate to choose the same career. Meeting you two is the pinnacle of my miracle happened this summer.