I wrote this poem after seeing an elderly lady in a consultation about depression. After a long while talking to me, she told me that her past was difficult to come to terms with, and haunted her. She revealed she had seen her brothers* shot in front of her in Germany. She fainted and they had pronounced her dead. However she ended up in a concentration camp.

It felt like she had stripped herself bare, taken off her layers to reveal herself to me. It was painful for her and for me, but honest. I cried quietly. She then gathered herself up and put on her coat and left. Nobody else would know her past in that building. It stayed with me. I saw a card on the G.P.’s desk with a still life of an onion and it seemed to fit. How people keep their layers hidden, how it can be therapeutic to reveal yourself, but painful. I can’t describe the effect of this consultation on me. She seemed to be a remarkable person.

*details have been omitted to preserve patient-confidentiality