Her friends understood – as did Dolores – the great pride she held in her practice. Start with paying her own way through school – school meaning college and grad school – while simultaneously working almost full time and raising a child was not an easy thing to do. Was it ever easy for any single parent?

There were many days when Dolores was ready to quit. Dolores worked five nights a week until 11, attended class during the day, parented everywhere he could in between. Yet she attended every parent teacher conference, every school event involving her child.

There were days when she fought against an occasionally drooping head, the call to sleep powerfully tugging on her during yet another tedious and lengthy lecture. Thank goodness her mum lived close by and actively wished to watch her granddaughter, else Dolores never would have made it here, the owner of a successful therapy practice, today.

When Dolores approached the end of her schooling, friends silently wondered if she could climb this final and most arduous hurdle. They need not have worried. She researched, wrote, and finally defended her dissertation with relative ease. Where so many became bogged down, she found a second wind and sailed on through the finish line.

That was over 18 years ago. After teaching for 5 years at a small college in the middle of upstate New York, Dolores chose to leave instruction behind, return home, and set up a private practice. A practice most unusual to 1990 eyes, but all she knew – even if they did not understand – had faith in her judgement.

Her choice obviously had proven correct. Dolores was impossibly busy now for different reasons than initially intended, but being self-employed and in charge, she could take time and adjust her schedule when needed. If she needed to cancel appointments, most of her voluntary clients understood – Dolores was well regarded, respected, and loved.

Normally there was barely enough time in a day. She would see clients from 8 am through 8 pm twice a week, and 9 to 6 on the other 3 days. At least Dolores made a point of taking 2 hours for lunch on the 12 hour days, meeting up for lunch and a walk with Sally, her closest friend since childhood. On the other 3 days, she would have a sandwich delivered from the deli in the adjacent building. Twice yearly she would take vacations away from the area, and held strictly to 2 weeks in spring, 4 weeks in the fall.

Not all of her clients were pleasant folk with which to spend an hour. Some clients saw her solely because they were under a court ordered requirement. For others, therapy was a condition of their release and probation. Dealing with these tougher issues and tougher cases was worth her while – it paid the bills, and helped to make the community (the entire northern part of the state) safer. It had one more notable benefit: having an established reputation and practice also left her well known throughout the state. One of only a few therapists to actively counsel clients with gender issues, for the people for whom she held so much love and respect, she was right there to see them all the way through to the other side.

Tim Salston was to be her newest voluntary client. He rather hesitatingly called some 2 months before; her earliest available appointment was for today – 21 October, much to his quite noticeable dismay. Tim’s reaction was not at all unusual, for it takes much courage to make the first call to a therapist. That call comes after a lifetime of enduring what for most people is unimaginable and unfathomable. Waiting for their first appointment only served to bring forth all the old urges within to be or remain closeted. A client struggled until the first meeting; some suffered significant anxiety on the drive to Dolores’ office.

Dolores refocused her thoughts back to the imminent meeting with Tim. “If he – probably she” Dolores silently thought (in the end it was her job to suss out which should apply) was like most of her other voluntary clients, there would be a pattern running from early childhood awareness, lack of ability to concentrate in more inactive settings and moments, a life to this point spent closeted, in denial, exploring, purging, and back to the closet. The one evolving element was age – the average age of her clients was getting markedly younger.

Now ready for the first session with Tim, Dolores opened the door to her office, walked out and around the corner into the waiting area, extending her right hand to the person who had just dropped a magazine while rising in response to her welcome.

Little did she know in that moment of first greeting that Tim was not like most of her either clients, or that a bit over a full year later, he would change her life – and the world – forever.