My sunny outlook on the dawn of each day contrasts so much with that of my grandson—which is probably why I’m rambling on about early mornings. I mean, the poor kid is sometimes afraid of them. I cannot imagine it. Can you? Afraid of mornings? It’s some kind of anxiety thing, I guess. That’s what they say, and my well-meaning daughter clings to that explanation because it means that maybe he’ll recover. Not that I blame her for the boy’s condition. Good God, she’s had a difficult time of late. When he describes the dread he feels, the images he sees, or the sense that he’s no longer in his body, well, that’s enough to send chills down your spine. I can understand why she needs something to embrace, some kind of diagnosis that puts this whole alarming thing into a manageable perspective. The boy’s doctor and therapist gave the condition a name. Depersonalization, or something like that. Never heard of it, but then again, who has if they never went to school for that kind of thing? I guess it’s pretty rare, or so the shrink says, and it tends to strike teenagers most often.
As odd as this whole thing sounds, I prefer depersonalization to the explanation provided by my other daughter. Somewhere along the way, Veronica turned into a right-wing religious nut. I can’t even begin to identify the sequence of events leading to her transformation. She certainly didn’t get it from me or my late wife. Not that we were opposed to religion—we did the church thing while the girls were growing up. Still, though, she’s morphed into this fire-breathing, intolerant woman who sees darkness around every corner. I love my daughter, don’t get me wrong, but the idea that her nephew is under some kind of a spiritual attack by an evil presence (and that’s what she calls it) is going a bit too far. She frightens my other daughter, who imagines levitating beds, rotating heads, and projectile vomit when she hears this kind of talk.
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