He just turned sixty last year. In fact, next month he will get his mission call. My bald doctor who just yesterday, I swear, was giving me my pre-marital exam—is leaving for three years to be a mission president somewhere. I still can’t figure out how I got here: one minute I was nursing newborns and changing diapers and watching bald-headed one-year-olds take their first steps; the next I’m sending lanky adolescents out the door to junior high and high school. Even more unfathomable to me is that he is retiring—the only doctor I have ever had deliver all my babies—except for my second-born, my eleven-year-old son, he had his associate deliver him, as he was in Israel on a trip (with my parents no less!) and returned back the next day. He’s off to an English speaking mission, hopefully right after the fourth of July holiday.
My doctor is right where he wants to be at this stage of his life, and I couldn’t be happier to have had him to take care of my health for this long. And he’s eager for this next phase of his life to begin: today when he was looking through my chart, he strode through the office, whistling, all smiles and cheerful confidence. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Yet, these past few hours I’ve found myself looking through my babies birth photos, my throat tight. I already miss the sound of him asking me questions, and the way he stoops down to hug me in my pink paper gown. And though my doctor assured me, on this my last visit to him ever, “There are a lot of great doctors in the practice to take care of you,” I think he said 3 or 4 different names—who won't be retiring any time soon—I know that though he’ll be back in three years and will still live in the same stake and his wife's sister is married to my sister-in-law's father, he’ll never be my doctor again.
But up until today I hadn’t had time to think about it. I’ve been so busy that I’ve only given my doctor’s leaving a few cursory thoughts at night after dropping into bed, exhausted, when I’ve thought over where he might be sent on his mission, or worried that whoever my new doctor is won't make me laugh until I cry at my annual check-up.
So today, as I watched my doctor closing my file and noticed that he had tears in his eyes, I realized—really realized—that for the very first time in nearly twenty years I will no longer have him as my primary care physician. My baby is seven (eight next month). My oldest son is off to college in two short years. And as he stood up and gave me a hug he said, “I’ll miss you, and I won't be able to hug any naked women like this for the next three years! (I wasn't really naked, I was wearing my pink paper gown) and all the women like you and the families I have been able to take care of. I love you.” and we both smiled, I suddenly found myself crying, wiping my eyes, and telling him I loved him too. I smiled as I watched him go, my heart in my throat. And on the way out to the car, after I told his nurse Susan good-bye, I cried again. And inwardly I waved good-bye.
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| Max & Dr. I |
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Dr. I with his wife Gloria Book of Mormon Youth Conference '06 |
