First camping trip without Peggy

Tuesday morning, Zoë and I are headed up to Patrick's Point, way up on the coast near Trinidad. The Andre family will join us there for four nights.

It's one of our favorite spots in California. And it was one of Peg's. This photo was taken just last year, when we hiked all over the trails and overlooks at Wedding Rock with Paul, Chris and the girls.

The photo at the top of this blog was at Sunset State Beach, Peg hanging out the back door of the camper. After the first two or three years, packing what we'd need (and more importantly, didn't need) got to be routine and we could just enjoy the experience. She loved hanging out in front of the campfire until late, trading snarky stories and making up goofy songs.

I think she loved the simplicity of it.  As much as she loved this house, there was peacefulness in not being surrounded by the ten thousand Things To Be Done.

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Zoë took her ACT exams in Yuba City (about an hour north of here) this morning. That's it for academics until we do the college tour after our July Carlsbad State Beach camping trip: UC San Diego, CalTech in Pasadena, Harvey Mudd/Scripps in Claremont, UC Santa Cruz and Stanford.

Peg knew early on--even without knowing the cancer would take her before the summer--that she wouldn't have the stamina to hopscotch all those campuses...so this is a trip Zoë and I would have made solo regardless.

This will be a summer of Daddio-daughter adventures. Most fathers don't get the chance to spend that much time with their teenage daughters. In that, we are blessed.

Peggy remembered as a therapist

Paul Aikin, one of our area's leading therapists, wanted to add a voice from the therapy community about Peggy. He didn't have prepared remarks at the memorial, but in an email today asked that I distribute his thoughts to family and friends.

A Memorial Tribute to Peggy Smith

I had the privilege and honor of being one of Peggy's teachers. We met every other week in a consult group for 12 years. Peggy was an unusual psychiatrist. She loved doing deep relational psychotherapy. She had a gift for it. Peggy was a quick study and eager learner. While many therapists shy away from processing directly the therapist’s impact on the patient and the patient's impact on the therapist, Peggy became very skilled in tracking these moves between her patients and herself.  She would wade right into the relational conflicts and help her patients connect with what wasn't working for them-- creating corrective relational experiences.

In recent years we have come to know from attachment theory and research that the therapists’ love of their patients is essential in healing insecure attachment wounds. Peggy was way ahead of her time. While many therapists still felt that it was inappropriate for a therapist to love her patients, Peggy grew to be comfortable with it. The loving, exuberant, mischievous and warm Peggy described by so many friends and family here at the Memorial today entered into her psychotherapy as well. She did not need to hide behind the role of being a psychotherapist. She was able to be the real, transparent, authentic warm person we all know and love in her position as psychotherapist while at the same time keeping the relationship therapeutic.

Peggy had a message on her answering machine saying that her practice was full many years before she stopped working. She was known as a therapist’s therapist. From time to time I would prevail upon Peggy to take on another therapist. (We all know that healers need healing.) She never turned me down. Many of those therapists have expressed how eternally grateful they were to have had the privilege of being touched and healed by her awesome level of attunement, presence, caring, courage, warmth, and authenticity.

Just as it is such a loss for friends and family, the therapeutic community of greater Sacramento has also lost an invaluable friend and colleague. She is irreplaceable. She leaves an incredible hole. We all miss her so much. And at the same time, she is already part of the lore of our relational therapeutic community. She leaves a shining light of what's possible.

Paul Aikin

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Paul A. Aikin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Licensed Marriage, Family Therapist
Certified EFT Couples Therapist
EFT Supervisor-In-Training

When Love Comes Home/The Rose

Bruce Patt shot both of these yesterday. Knowing how much Peg loved it, seeing Laura Sandage and Katie Henry (the songwriter) perform "When Love Comes Home" was a real joy. And then three dear friends, Karen Farwell, Mary Patt and Estelle Kinsella, performed another of Peg's favorites, "The Rose."

The stillness after

Peggy's memorial was memorable...beautiful...and a fountain of love. About 150 people, some of whom I hadn't seen in many years, all gathered in Marilea Wolf's beautiful back yard.

Bruce Patt took this photo of Marianne, me, Jeanette, Mike and Jay just after Mudlark performed "When Love Comes Home." I'll post more photos (and the video Bruce shot) tomorrow. Still processing all the hundreds of little moments. And there were so many wonderful moments.

My heart is full.