Strongholds. Vanessa Davis Griggs
he would be the only one there to even answer the phone. Now, I almost have to schedule an appointment just to shake his hand after service to tell him I enjoyed his sermon.”
“So, is this what you came in to talk to me about?” I asked. “It bothers you that you can’t talk with your pastor whenever you want?”
“No, that’s not what I want to talk about! And I guess as much as it’s costing me an hour to talk to you, I should get to my problem and my point.” She started laughing. “Maybe that’s why black folks don’t believe in shrinks. It costs too much, especially when it used to be something we could do for free. But a friend of mine did highly recommend you. So here I am. Hurry up and fix me; I’m on a fixed income.”
People have discovered through word of mouth that I’m really good at what I do. My practice grew after the first five years to more than I could handle in the time I had originally allotted to work. For this reason, I had to extend my Monday through Friday hours to 7 P.M. and a half day on Saturdays. The problem is: I rarely leave the office before 8 P.M., and the half day Saturday somehow doesn’t end until after 3 P.M.
That’s partly why in late 2003 a therapist named Sapphire Drummond and I decided to hook up. She had moved to Birmingham from Atlanta back in 2002. I’d heard talk on the circuit about how good she was, and I was hoping the two of us partnering would relieve some of my workload. What appears to have actually happened is our reputation as a team grew, and we both were working longer days and nights.
Avis is completely fed up with all of this. I’ve been working these crazy hours for over ten years now. We have four children, two girls and two boys. When I first began my practice, some fifteen years ago, I couldn’t make enough money to even pay half our bills. Avis and I both worked, but we had student loans. It was hard as a young married couple starting out. Add to that, Avis got pregnant two months after our wedding. Birth control failure—definitely not part of our well laid-out plan.
That first pregnancy was hard on her. She was often sick and missed a lot of work she didn’t get paid for because she didn’t have enough time built up for sick pay. Add to that, we didn’t have company-paid insurance at the time because my practice was my own business and she hadn’t worked long enough to qualify for health insurance yet where she worked. We could have paid the premiums after she started working until she qualified, but the payment was around $450 a month for family coverage. Today I pay $780, but of course, I can afford that now with no problem. Back then, we were struggling just to pay our rent and utilities—forget finding enough money to pay for health insurance. Creditors started harassing us about late bills. It was extremely stressful.
I secured a full-time job working in a plant from 11 P.M. to 7 A.M. Then I would go into my office to see the handful of patients I’d managed to acquire already from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Some days it wasn’t but three people, but their appointments were spread out, so I had to be there all day regardless. If there was enough time in between appointments, I would take a nap. Most of the time that would provide me with only about an hour of sleep, although every little bit certainly did help.
After Avis had the baby, we had a huge hospital bill to contend with. She had to have a C-section, which is considered surgery. It was necessary for me to keep up that intense work schedule just to maintain our new bills. Gradually, I got used to working all the time. Even after things got better for us and we had a nice cushion of money in the bank, I continued to work long and hard. I just didn’t want my family to want for anything.
Eventually I said, “Avis, why don’t you stop working completely and stay home with the children?” Three years after our first child, we had a second. Four months after the second, while she was still on a leave of absence from work, we learned we were expecting our third. Yes, we did know about birth control, but the pill was not a viable option for Avis for medical reasons. Some other methods we didn’t care to use because of side effects like migraines, weight gain, excessive bleeding, and allergic reactions; future health concerns; or being controlled by a calendar, which wasn’t always convenient and tended to conflict with our schedules while alienating spontaneity.
“Xavier, you’re already overworking yourself,” was Avis’s response to me asking her to stop working and letting me take on all the bills.
“It’s all good now. My practice is growing well. In fact, I’m planning to put in my two-week’s notice down at the plant,” I said.
And I fully intended to quit that job in two weeks, except it occurred to me that I was one year away from being vested with their pension plan. And besides, it made sense to work until the new baby came. That would just be more money for the household.
With three young children, Avis did decide to leave her company and stay home. I quit my job at the plant four months after our little girl, Jasmine Monet, was born. It looked like I was slowing down, but I soon discovered I didn’t know how to have that much downtime. So when I found myself with all this “free” time, I revved up my efforts to acquire more clients. When some of my colleagues wanted someone to cover for them while they were out of town or vacationing, I was the go-to guy. Then Dr. Preston had a stroke, and I was asked to maintain his client base until he recovered and returned. He never recovered, and I ended up inheriting ninety percent of his lucrative clientele.
“Xavier, when are you going to slow down and spend time with us?” Avis asked again three years ago, right after our fourth child, Brandon Skylar, made his entrance into the world. “We don’t go on vacation. You’re hardly ever home. When you do make it home, it’s close to most of the children’s bedtime. You fell asleep while eating supper the other day. For goodness sake, you fell asleep while you were putting Brandon to sleep.”
“It’s not going to be like this always, Avis. I do this for us. You know this. We have this huge home with luxury vehicles parked in all four of our garages because of my hard work. Our children don’t want for anything. Everybody has the latest gizmo—”
“But we don’t have you,” Avis said. “You and I don’t even go out anymore.”
“That’s not true.”
She looked at me like I had grown another head. “When was the last time you took me out?”
I thought for a few minutes. She gave me time.
“Okay,” she said. “If you don’t remember when, where did we go? And church doesn’t count.”
I admit she had me with that one, too. It had been so long, I couldn’t recall the last place she and I had gone anywhere together other than church. Not even on one of our past anniversaries, although I did give her beautiful diamonds each year and a car for one.
“I promise, Avis. I’m going to cut back. You can’t just do something like that all at once.”
“That’s what you keep saying, but you never do it. What’s the point of having a family if you’re not ever around to enjoy us?”
“I’m just trying to ensure our security, Avis. I want you and the children to have the best. I know it may be out-of-date thinking, but I’m supposed to provide for you.”
She walked up to me and grabbed my hand. “Money-wise, you provide plenty, Dr. Holden. Where we seem to be deficient is me having a husband around, and the children are desperately in need of a father. I don’t know, Xavier. There’s always a trade-off in whatever decisions we make. I just pray you don’t find yourself losing your family while in the pursuit of the almighty dollar that no one is forcing you to chase except you.”
When I came home yesterday from the office, my family was gone. There was a note from Avis.
Xavier,
When you decide you really want to be part of a family, let me know.
I love you,
Avis
I called Avis on her cell phone and promised her I would cut back starting first thing next week. She wasn’t hearing it anymore. If I was serious, I would have to prove it.
So today I went to church, albeit