He holds no degree in psychology. He doesn’t work out of an office. He hangs no shingle in front of his house that says, “Bring your problems to me.”

He understands his purpose in life and accepts the command of what he has to do because there is no escape for him. They will find him. Oh, yes, they will find him.

He works his magic from a bar stool, on the bleachers at a football game, in the produce aisle at the grocery store. They find him everywhere he goes, and their attachment to him, like metal to a magnet, is immediate.

Some time after the perfunctory small talk, there’s always a secret said as if a confession was being offered to a priest. The following anecdote is an account of an actual experience,

“What am I supposed to do?” She asked him. “He raped me. My own father raped me when I was 13 and he’s dead now and I don’t know if I want to still go on loving him or go on hating him.”

They sat together on a park bench and he knew what he had to do. He remembered words from a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer to set his role on the stage of unburdening her soul.

He repeated the poem’s words in his mind, “I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.”

So he listened. He listened through the sobs of her tears and a voice filled with anger. He knew not to tell her to seek counseling. He gave no advice whatsoever. That was not his business to ever do. He learned a long time ago that he should never own someone else’s decision.

Whenever she would look at him with a desperate anxiety painted on her face that silently shouted, “Please help me,” he would gently hold her hand and say, “What do you want to do about this?”

She mouthed through the possibility of answers. She wanted to scream obscenities at her dead father, but then she wanted to hug his guilt away, that’s if he had any. After her rant, what she really wanted was for him to tell her he was sorry, but it was obviously too late for that.

“What do you think you should do so you can go on living without the pain and the anger?” he asked. He knew he had pushed the right button. This was always his precise moment to help people help themselves. His motto was the same for everyone. Listen. Learn. Lead.

During the next five-minute conversation with herself, he never let go of her hand. This was his power to help heal. To touch her hand, he touched her soul, and then she could open a door that had been closed for too many years.

“I know what to do now,” she said with an uneasy smile. “I am going to write my father a letter and place it on his grave. I will tell him how I have suffered, how I trusted the most important man in my life and how he used that trust to violate me.”

She squeezed my hand, “Then, I will forgive him because I have to.”

The moment was right to say what he has said so many times to so many others.

“You’ll never get over this, but you’ll get through it.”

She leaned over and hugged him. Then, as if a sudden wind had swept her away, she disappeared into the distance and he knew he would never see her again.

The healer lives alone, and in his darkest hours, he cries for someone to heal him. He spins inside a constant vortex of depression and anxiety, a battle between not caring about anything anymore to worrying about having to fix the next hundred people who will come to him.

Help one, help them all, but who will help him? Silently, he sings a line from a Beatles’ song and he spurts out a sarcastic laugh.

“He’s a real Nowhere Man making nowhere plans for nobody.”

Sometimes he wants to give his gift back. He shakes his fist at the sky, but the sun shines down upon him, reminding him that he is who he is.

A former student of mine, Brianna Michelle McCabe, wrote this poem that inspired the subject of this column.

Empty nest

When you are a healer, the wounded souls flock

Like birds to a known nest

“Please help me fly,” they squawk

With windswept wings sagging and chirps of defeat

They take in the battered — they make it their feat

Foraging for the hurt and nurturing growth

The healer gives all — his energy for both

“I thank you for your time, and now I can fly.”

As the mended bird waves

And gives his last goodbye.

But who heals the healer and fills the void in the nest

When the healed have since left and the giver needs rest?

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.