DEAR YOGESHREE
This letter is the second to you on a challenge that you will , without doubt encounter in your work as a child and youth care worker. It has again to do with the difficulty of separating fantasy from reality in the belief and world view of children and how we may might have to deal with it in practice. Again, the story in my last letter of the woman in the Psychiatric hospital and the intern who got into her world for a moment was the inspiration for how this particular challenge was handled. My letters to you were never intended to be a type of manual of good practice. They have always been intended to be starting points for discussion and are written as incidents "warts and all" . In fact, the interventions and interactions in them may sometimes be questionable. Please use them as starting points for debate and reflection.
" Mr Lodge !"
"Yes"
"My name is Simon Ndlovu. I am in charge of security at the International Airport.
"I have Jennifer Karparkus here. We found her on the tarmac of the airport trying to get into the baggage hold of a Quanta's airliner. Please come and collect her."
"How the hell did she get there?"
"She got through all the security checks in the airport terminal Mr Lodge. We don't know how she did it. Please come and collect her."
It must have been the fifth time that airport security had found her. Each time she was trying to get onto a plane at the International Airport..... I knew the story only too well.
"I have to get to Celine Dion. I have to see her and talk to her. I have to tell her - I told you - they want to kill her." She would tell me this over and over."I have to get to Canada and speak to Celine Dion".
I didn't even know who Celine Dion was at first. ( she was just starting to make her mark as a singer). Jennifer's mother told me that Jennifer had all of Celine Dion's CD's in a large collection and spent her time listening to her music. So, I made it my business to find out as much as I could about Celine Dion and to listen to as much as I could of her music. It was easy to hear that Celine Dio0n was a star, probably a super star, a 'diva' in that musical genre..... and Jennifer was a fanatical fan.
The story unfolded over time.
She was apparently quite involved in a Satanistic coven. Some of the same group of members had moved into our care from the Child and Youth Care Centre ( Place of Safety) where she was placed when 'removed'(old terminology) from her home and her neighbourhood. ... So, her involvement in the coven continued with, she said, the threat of death for her if she were ever to reveal its secrets.
Through the different levels of her journey into Satanism, she was not allowed to be part of the discussion nor ritual of some of the deeper levels. She said that at one time she was sent out of the room while one of the upper level groups held their meeting.
Her story was that she listened through the closed door and heard them say there was a plan that Celine Dion would be assassinated for a huge sum of money. She was horrified. She loved Celine Dion.
Her problem was that she had to get to Celine Dion before the Satanists did... and she had to do it without any Satanist knowing.because she believed, she would become a target herself. .It was to be Celine Dion or her.... a terrible and frightening trap.
We were working on releasing Jennifer from what she perceived to be the strangle-hold of her involvement and the approach was to help to release herself level by level. But the urgent need to warn Celine Dion, in Jennifer's mind, occupied each of her living moments It was all taking too longto release the ever present mixture of fear and desperation inside her.
I suggested that she write to Celine Dion through her fan club address. It was the only address I could get. Jennifer did that.. Then Jennifer found an address for her manager and we penned a letter to him.... To this letter we got a reply from the manager of Celine Dion's security company. None of this satisfied Jennifer and it was then that she got so far as to be caught trying to limb into the baggage hold of the Quanta's aircraft.
Once back, I suggested that we there and then telephone the Manager of Celine Dion's security company in Canada to tell him the story. I 'phoned him first and told him to take whatever she will say very seriously.He said they do that anyway with any suggestion of a threat against Celine. What Jennifer really wanted was to speak to Celine personally, but the security manager said it was really impossible to do that. This seemed like the best compromise
When Jennifer spoke to him I left the room. Her call to Canada and the security manager lasted nearly half an hour. I have no idea what was said and Jennifer never spoke about it to me at all at any time.
I just know that she didn't ever run again.
I was there when Jennifer went back to live with her mother permanently again. Yet I felt that Jennifer never did lose something of her aura of a quiet mystery locked up inside of her and which hovered around her.
She never did stop listening to Celine Dion and she hankered over her singers most recent CD's
Now Jeniffer sits back and listens to Celine's voice and the melodies flow over her.
.....and she smiles.
.
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