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Blake

Blake was a foster-care youth and former client of Annie Whitaker. He died by suicide several years before Annie began treating Jacob Keller. His death shaped Annie’s later commitment to Jacob and her work with foster youth.

Life and Foster Care

Blake moved through multiple foster placements and came to Annie with a history of school discipline and arrests for petty crimes. The systems around him described him as difficult and treated much of his behavior as delinquency. Annie recognized trauma in the same record. He distrusted adults after years of instability and did not grant her trust quickly.

Clinical Relationship with Annie Whitaker

Main article: Jacob Keller and Annie

Annie worked with Blake through sustained, low-pressure care and advocated for him with his school and caseworkers. He began to trust her only near the end of his life. She recognized warning signs, tried to intervene, and could not prevent his death.

Afterward, Annie processed her grief and the resulting countertransference in therapy with Dr. Beverly Klein. Her drinking increased in the period after Blake’s death, a change she also brought into her own therapy. Blake’s memory informed the intensity of her commitment to Jacob without becoming an explicit subject of their early sessions.

Death

Blake died by suicide around 2019 or 2020.

Legacy and Memory

Annie kept a small framed photograph of Blake in her office’s top desk drawer, out of clients’ sight. The photograph was from his sixteenth birthday, two months before his death.

Annie kept in periodic contact with Blake’s mother. They met for coffee occasionally, and Annie sent a card on his birthday or a message on a difficult day. Each year Annie lit a yahrzeit candle for Blake and said the mourner’s kaddish, observing the loss through her own Jewish practice.

Annie told Jacob about Blake at her kitchen table when Jacob was in his late twenties, outside a therapy session. Jacob was briefly angry to learn that another former client had held a similar place in Annie’s mind. He subsequently joined Annie in lighting a yahrzeit candle for Blake each year.

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