Almost Lost (25 page)

Paula: “I see pain and fear as two little orphan words that are so helpless and vulnerable that the horrible, big, bullies HATE and ANGER will come in and take over their little souls if we let them.”

I stood up. “As Sammy says, you're all ‘getting your gonzos together,' and by continuing to trust, talk with, and support each other, you're all going to make it to your own promised lands!”

“With each one of our candles burning brightly,” Sammy added.

Lance put his arm around his son's shoulders and smiled knowingly. “Yes, precious son, with each one of our candles burning ever so brightly.”

SUMMARY OF SESSION
FAMILY SESSION WITH SAMUEL, PAULA,
LANCE, DANA, AND DORIE

It is fantastic and wonderful that the Gordon family now
know
how much they need to, and can, rely on each other! Dear Sammy has traded hostile, unhappiness-causing, depressive negativity in on HAPPINESS-RADIATING AND SUCCESS-INVITING POSITIVITY! His new thinking patterns will ever be worlds away from thoughts of suicide.

Charles Dickens wrote that the 1800s were “the best of times and the worst of times.” I think
our time
is the best of times and the worst of times
with the best of kids and the worst of kids!
When I read teenage studies, always in the back of my mind is the wonderment: how many of the hostile, troublemaking, abnormally-acting kids have been brought up in environments which have taught them that that kind of HOSTILE ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR IS NORMAL!

Samuel Gordon Chart

Friday, October 28, 6:20
P.M.

Telephone Conversation
SAMUEL (SAMMY) GORDON, 15 years old

 

Sammy telephoned.

“Hi, I've got some awesome news. Have you got a minute?'”

“I've got the rest of my life.”

“I know you're busy, so I'll hurry.”

“Don't! Just make this a social, not a professional call.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure, I'm sure! You're my friend, and I'm as anxious to hear about the good things that are happening to your nice family as you are anxious to tell me. How's Dana doing?”

“She's coming around. I think her trust mechanism is beginning to kick in again.”

“Are you the playing the TOXICITY OF NEGATIVITY Game and some of the others?”

“Yeah, and we're listening to our family tapes together and really working at the communication thing. That making appointments to talk to Mom and Dad thing, one to one, in complete privacy, is awesome!”

“I knew you'd like that.”

“But let me tell you the best news. Dad's getting a job
here
.”

“That's wonderful.”

“And guess what else.”

“Oh, come on, just tell me.”

“Mom and Dad are getting remarried.”

“That is, of course, what I hoped would happen.”

“Me too.”

Sammy hesitated for a couple of seconds. “Actually what I really called to ask you was…” He hesitated again.

“Hey, it's me. Remember, you can ask
me
anything.”

“Well, okay. Mom and Dad are coming home from their honeymoon a week from Sunday, and we wondered if you'd like to come over and help us welcome them back into their new old life. Does that make sense? Anyway, Dorie and Dana and I, and I'm sure Mom and Dad, would like to have you here. Dana and Dorie are making all kinds of cookies and stuff, and Grandma Gordon, who is staying with us while they're gone, is fixing a big turkey.”

“Whose idea was all this?”

“Well, sort of mine, but Grandma and Dana and Dorie are doing all the work.”

“You're just furnishing the brains?”

“Ha! Together we're making banners and stuff for inside the house and a big
WELCOME HOME MR. AND MRS. GORDON
sign for over the driveway. It's covered with flowers and music notes and hearts and arrows and stuff, and it's thoroughly awesome.”

“Sounds thoroughly awesome.”

“And you know what's really the best thing of all?”

“No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me.”

“This is just awesomely awesome. Dana and Dorie and Grandma Gordon have been sneaking around working almost continuously on this big original embroidered motto. They even let me put in a
few stitches down in one corner where they wouldn't show. Anyway, it's got hearts and flowers and music notes on it, like the banner, but in the bottom righthand corner it's got five stupendous candles—five superstupendous, brightly burning candles that no one can ever blow out!”

“I'll bet
that
was your idea, precious Sammy.”

“Yeah, and it's kind of nice to know that you and Mom and Dad and I are the only ones in the whole world who will ever know what those five, forever brightly shining, no-one-can-ever-blow-them-out candles really mean. Maybe someday I'll explain the candles to Dorie and Dana. Do you think I should?”

“I think you should if…”

Sammy laughed and finished my sentence, “If I think I should.”

Samuel Gordon Chart

Wednesday, November 23, 12:15
P.M.

Telephone Conversation
SAMUEL (SAMMY) GORDON, 15 years old

 

The phone rang. It was Sammy. I turned the recorder on. “What's up?”

“I just called to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you know how thankful I am to you for getting me back on the right track.”

“Thank yourself! I couldn't have gotten you on track if you hadn't wanted to do it.”

“I know you're busy…”

“Never too busy for you. I'm just sitting here eating my sack lunch. What's happening in your life?”

“It's beyond stratospheric. Well, most of the time. You know how family and school things are.”

“How are you doing with your mind games?”

Sammy's voice became soft and confidential. “It's like something beyond magic has happened to me since I've truly accepted the fact that, like you said,
MY MIND CONTROLS MY BODY, AND I CONTROL MY MIND!
It's almost supernatural or something when I do the hypnotherapy exercises and play the mind games. I feel…empowered. I
control
the wonderful and amazing force that is my brain, the power that helps me control not only my thoughts and actions and feelings but helps me influence the thoughts and feelings and actions of others, both positively and negatively. It's a humongous responsibility.”

“I'm grateful you now realize
your responsibility in life
, Sammy. I wonder how long it will be before mankind is able to conceptualize a large portion of the brain-actuated control we will eventually have, once we learn more about homing in on it.”

“Like what do you mean?”

“Like, what do you know about biofeedback?”

“Well, they hook wires up to your brain and heart and stuff with lots of little pads, to find out what triggers stress and anger and stuff inside you. In time, if you know what thoughts switch on the good energy and what thoughts switch on the bad energy, you can control those mind and body powers.

“Sort of like you can see what's going on inside of you, when you're happy or sad, or mad or glad. Right?”

“I love the panel of little colored lights in front of you that switch on and off so you can see your reactions and how little or big those reactions are.”

“I think that's as good and as simple an explana
tion of biofeedback as I've ever heard. How did you get so smart?”

“Mom showed me a bunch of charts and stuff and the biofeedback machine at the hospital one day when I was there. It's pretty far-out science fiction sort of stuff.”

“Yes, biofeedback can
work wonders
for people who will work with it. The amazing machine can even tell your future.”

“You're kidding.”

“In a sense it can. For instance, if a person allows his/her temper, depression, frustration, or whatever, to raise his/her heart rate and shoot adrenaline into the bloodstream, etcetera, his/her life is in jeopardy of being both physically and mentally compromised or shortened. The machine clearly shows that, doesn't it?”

“Yep! I think everyone should have a biofeedback machine at home. Then we could all solve our problems before we have the problems, keep our little helpless pains and fears from becoming dangerous big ANGERS and HATES.”

“Sammy, what I'm going to tell you now really does sound like science fiction. In laboratories around the world, scientists are experimenting with brain-actuated control even as we speak. People have, with brain-actuated control, successfully turned TV and light switches on and off, moved computer cursors and other things, all without touching them. At the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, people are using their own brain waves to control flight simulators. They can keep their ‘plane' on an even keel or dip it from side to side. In a way it is like a video game except that
it is done completely with the mind
.

“The methodology behind the technology is sim
ple and straightforward. Electrodes, similar to those in biofeedback, are attached to the head. They are keyed in to specific brain waves and monitored for voltage changes, which are then interpreted as simple computer commands. For instance, if you wanted to turn on a light, electrodes would be attached to your head in a certain place. At the same time your electroencephalogram (EGG) would graphically show you the voltage of the particular brain wave being monitored. You would think of something that would cause the voltage to increase—some victory, or some fantastic experience that would heighten your senses. That would cause the voltage in the specific brain waves being monitored to rise. When they reach a certain level, the computer would take that as a command to turn on the light and…presto…the light would turn on.”

“Wow!”

“There is still much research to do in these areas because of the immense complexity of the human brain. Imagine tens of trillions of neurons firing away at any given instant, neurons which are allowing you to weigh options, process concepts, form opinions, learn things, retain information, release it, and telling you when to do what and how to do it. Your brain is sparkling with chemical and electrical activity as well as different types of noises.”

“How many places are working in this area?”

“Many. Grant McMillan, head of the Alternative Control Technology Laboratory works in connection with the rehabilitation of disabled people. Researchers at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research are concentrating on particular brain patterns known as
‘mu rhythms.' They are having success rates ranging from eighty to ninety-five percent.

“Gert Pfurtscheller of the Graz University of Technology in Austria reports that people who have participated in their brain-actuated control studies are totally dumbfounded when they watch their brain waves take control of a computer.”

“I would be too! Tell me…”

I looked at my watch. “Sorry, friend Sammy. It's almost time for my next client friend.”

“Do you think you can help him…”

“Her.”

“…her as much as you helped me?'

“I can if…”

Sammy finished for me. “I know!…If she'll
let
you! Good luck.”

I needed that. Beautiful little fourteen-year-old Laurie had been abused by her family, then abandoned. The foster parents she had been placed with had also abused her. She deserves to learn about the good things out there that can replace all the bad things that have been shoveled in at her in her past few short years.
Just thinking of Sammy will help me help her!
Maybe sometime I'll tell her about Sammy and his
single lighted candle
that lights up so many worlds, including mine.