Comforting the anguished

Stockton counselor offers letter to God as comfort

By: Mae Rhine
   STOCKTON — A counselor in this tiny borough has come up with a different way to get people talking about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
   She has written a letter to God, with a forward, that she wrote to help herself deal with the tragedy. That letter has been forwarded to people in New York and made available to her clients at her practice at the Stockton Center for Health Care.
   Dr. Pelli Wheaton was on her way with her mother that day to a cousin’s funeral when they saw what happened on television.
   "We never did get to the funeral," she said.
   Instead, she and her mother went to a local church and brought flowers in her cousin’s name.
   The tragedy "motivated me to call people I wanted to talk to," she recalled.
   Many of her own clients called her that day.
   "It was heartwarming," she said. "Some called to see if I was here because I’m often in the city. They didn’t know what to say."
   But some, she said, are using the attack as an "opportunity, in large scale," to realize some of their own day-to-day problems don’t seem as insurmountable.
   Dr. Wheaton plans to go to New York City this weekend to help. She will be working with United Way and the Armory, which have teamed up to provide counseling. She will be based at the Princeton Armory in a week or so, she said. But this weekend she plans to go to the Armory in New York City.
   Dr. Wheaton has a master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Rider University and a doctorate in philosophy and holistic health science from Clayton College, Birmingham, Ala.
   She has worked at the Stockton office for 11 years.
   Because of her work, she received 12 to 13 calls from professionals in New York City, Jersey City and the Port Authority in New York City, asking her to help with counseling.
   "I had calls coming in from people who worked with me," she said. "I’ve been a widow for 15 years, and those people who worked with me in grief counseling called."
   One of the first things she has had to deal with her own clients, as well as the over-the-phone counseling, is post-traumatic stress.
   "What makes it post is that we don’t deal with it," Dr. Wheaton said. People should first say whatever they’re feeling and be listened to because "trauma completely covers that feeling."
   A short time later, when the body starts recognizing what happened, there is the "crackling sensation," as Dr. Wheaton has coined it.
   "In all the calmness, little bubbles of what really happened start to surface," she said. At first, the body "basically represses it."
   What she is finding among her clients is "the whole concept of safety is gone right now. It will be with us for quite a while."
   Following is the forward and letter Dr. Wheaton is handing to clients to help them find the words to express their grief:
   On 9/11/2001, God and Nature were sparklingly clear; its greens of grass and leaves of trees apparent against white and blue skies and as abundant in its radiance as it was in all its presence; God’s world could not have been more evident.
   Simultaneous to this magnificent presence of God, the presence of man was erupting in destruction so severe that as of this writing, 5,000 and possibly more of our Family of Man Americans have been lost to us, robbed of the precious gift of God/Nature — time — time to see, hear, touch, feel, love, share, "be" who they were becoming, who they wanted to be and above all to "be" with those they loved and those that loved them, their families, their wives, husbands, children and so many, many more.
   We are so shocked in this trauma and loss, and though I write within that very state, I am once again reminded so clearly of the TWO distinct systems to which we exist.
   There is, no matter how horrific — the trade towers did "go down" — or terrific — the trade towers "were created" — the presence of man with his/her incredible power of self blindness and there self harm (destroying a fellow human being, destroys the human being we all are within), there is still God and Nature and this blessing is only unavailable when we are not capable of seeing it.
   I ask readers as you read this to look around you, to go past yourself, your newspaper, your TV and see, see that God and Nature is around you, and yes, always is around you — even during those unspeakable events of 9/11/2001.
   And, because this is so, that God and Nature is "alive and well" even while so many of us are dying — and in vain — I pray that for some of those dying, with all the fears and pain they suffered those awful moments, that some could say what I now say myself.
   Dear God,
   I thank you for being with me in this moment when I am so frightened, so lost, so hurt and in such pain and severe despair. I thank you God and ask you to remain with me to help me and then to help those I will soon leave behind.
   Once again, the family of man with its horrific blindness to you, destroys the children we are from you and because of you.
   Help us Dear God and Nature as we come back home to you. Please, please bestow your magnificent presence upon us and always, always, those we must leave behind us now.
   I will miss them and I love you, dear God and Nature.

Your kid,
M. Pelli Wheaton