a few of my patients in the middle of the night.
When I began my practice, Avis and I had just gotten engaged. Avis is my sweetheart. I remember the day I first knew I liked her. We were in the school yard.
“Ouch!” Avis yelled as she turned around and glared at me. “Boy, why did you pull my hair?”
“Who you calling a boy?”
“If you pull my hair again, I’m going to do more than call you a boy,” she said.
“Oh, so I’m supposed to be scared of you?” I asked.
“You’d better be.”
“And who are you supposed to be?”
She put one hand on her hip, which truthfully already had some nice curves going on, cocked her head to one side, and turned up her nose at me. “Avis Denise Miller!”
I smiled. “Avis? What kind of a name is Avis?”
“You pull my hair again, and you’re gonna find out what kind of a name is Avis. ’Cause I’m gonna run you down and roll right over you.” She turned and walked away.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I fell in love at the age of ten, right then and there next to the seesaw. It took Avis another five years (she was thirteen by then, two years younger than me) to come to her senses and realize she hopelessly loved me, too. Some folks claim I merely “wore the poor girl down.” The truth is, she felt the electricity the day I yanked that luscious, long, black, springy plait of hers.
I know what it’s like to grow up doing without. So does Avis. We both knew education was the golden key to our escaping the great state of poverty. I always knew I wanted to be some type of doctor, but the thought of being on call 24/7 didn’t appeal to me. I realized I had a knack for talking to people, but an even greater gift when it came to listening, analyzing, and giving direction to folks regardless of their age, race, religious background, or gender.
People think they’re helping by trying to tell others what they should do. But I learned early in life, if you give people time to talk and to listen to what’s inside of them already, they will, for the most part, discover the answers they seek. The problem I find with us black folk is: we consider it a sign of weakness to go talk to a professional when it comes to psychological things, like being depressed. Church folks in particular considered it weak faith if a person had to seek help from a “head doctor” or a “shrink” as they were called back in my day. It’s changing some, but we still have a long way to go.
I look at what I do as being an extension of ministry. Some people can talk to their pastors about everything. Some people are fortunate enough to have a really good friend they feel comfortable enough sharing intimate details about their lives with in order for them to heal. Lately, however, it seems my practice has exploded because of the mega churches that are springing up. Folks are finding it increasingly more difficult to get an appointment to talk with their pastors without a three- to six-month wait.
“Look, Dr. Holden,” one of my patients—a tall, heavyset woman with short, cropped hair—said. “First off, I don’t really believe in head doctors or shrinks.”
“We’re not head doctors or shrinks.”
“You know what I mean. You people do like to mill around in folks’ heads trying to fix problems, real or imagined.”
“Okay. So you don’t believe in head doctors or shrinks.”
“Anyhow, I didn’t really want to come, but I called my pastor’s office so I could talk with him about an urgent matter, and he’s booked up for the next five months. They have others on staff you can talk to, but I don’t want one of his clones; I want my pastor. Especially with the kind of money I put in church every year. There was a time, before the church grew so large, when I could pick up the phone, call the church, and 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
