I spent several hours yesterday — a Sunday — at the doctor’s office.  I had somehow got the tip of my hearing aid lodged in my ear and decided to seek medical care on a Sunday.  Luckily the hospital our primary care doctor’s office is affiliated with, staffs a walk in clinic that is open 7 days a week.

This experience left me wondering about things.  In the convoluted way that is my brain and consciousness, it left me thinking about grief.  Catholic tradition holds that when an infant is baptized in the Church with their Christian name, that is the time when a guardian angel is assigned to the infant.  I wonder if a similar mystical event occurs the first time one experiences grief through the death of a loved one so important to them?

The doctor I happened to see in the walk in clinic was my primary care doctor for 5 or 6 years before he moved to a different practice outside our area.  

It was great to see him.  When he walked into the room and I recognized him there was a heaviness I sensed around and within him.  The old mother hen that has been born within me in my middle age had this strong desire and thought to just reach out and hug him and hold him close to my heart sending that love energy from the heart chakra, assuring him that whatever is weighing on him will be ok.

I asked him how he was and he responded, “I don’t have any complaints really.”  It wasn’t a response that quelled any of the mother hen concerns.

I hadn’t seen him in 3 or 4 years.  I have a fondness and affection for this doctor that is deep and inexplicable.  It’s foreign to me.  A side of me wonders if one should have such fondness and affection for their doctor or former doctor.  It’s not romantic.  It’s not sensual or physical.  It’s a nurturing, loving, affirming fondness that is as close to parental as I will ever know I suppose.  This doctor is only 10 years younger than myself.  Perhaps it’s the fact he was born in 1977 — something I somehow discovered when I was talking during one of my earlier office visits with him years ago — that makes me so fond of him.

1977 is one of those landmark years in my earthly journey.  It was the year that I as a 10 year old boy set foot on the path of my initiation into the world of grief when my father died unexpectedly.

For decades, whenever that year came to mind or came up, my memory would automatically be taken back to that sad year and the loss that occurred.  To those dark sad gray autumn days when my father died.  I would remember only the sadness that ten year old me navigated and the helpless, voiceless feeling as I watched my mother and brothers navigate their sadness and grief.  None of us knew then that talking to each other about what we were feeling would help us.  None of us knew it was ok to discuss the loss.  Each of us blindly went on “getting back to normal” and putting a strong front as a happy, healthy family after Dad died.

Over the years I’ve met a few individuals born in 1977 who would help memorialize that year in a different fashion.  The first one was the younger brother of a seminary friend of mine.  Then I met this doctor about ten years ago and his entry into my life made such a difference to my world.

When I learned he was born in the same year my father died, I had another reason to see 1977 in a different light.  I was grateful that this positive, wonderful, healing, restoring, compassionate, thoughtful soul began its embodied life in this young man in 1977.  Knowing this beautiful soul became human in 1977 and our lives crossed in the present moment in time, shone light in all that darkness of sorrow and grief that year resurrected in my memories.  My soul was at a greater peace in the presence of this soul who entered its earthly life as this doctor.

I’ve struggled with mild chronic depression most of my life.  I can only imagine it is a by product of the initiation into the world of grief at such a young age and not having a mentor, a therapist, a guide or someone to talk to as I blindly navigated along this journey and watched my young mother (37 at the time in 1977) and my three brothers still at home when my father died similarly blindly navigate the same journey I was on without so much as acknowledging the path we were all on or being able to openly comfort each other along the way without fear of stirring up negative sad, mad, or despondent emotions in the other.  It was safer to just tip toe around the issue of Dad’s death than to openly discuss it and risk igniting a firestorm of emotions with others in the household.

When I was 49, this young doctor was still my primary care physician.  During my physical with him that year, we discussed me going on anti-depressants.  I wanted nothing to do with it as I felt I had been managing my depression well.  Then this doctor said something that touched my heart, that stole my heart, “I know we’ve discussed it before and I know you feel you are managing it well.  It’s just, you’re going to be 50 next year.  It just seems to me as you enter this phase of your life, you’d want to enjoy your life without carrying the brunt of the weight of depression.”  

It didn’t sway me then.  A few weeks later, I found myself calling him up and saying, “Ok.  Let’s give it a try.”

Prozac, or its generic equivalent Fluoxetine, wasn’t a magic pill nor a “happy” pill as some who may think those who struggle with depression simply don’t choose being happy.  It silenced the critic in me.  It evicted from my thoughts the self defeating thoughts.  It held at bay most of the time the thoughts that “I am just tired of living.”  Thoughts that invaded my psyche when I embarked and entered the world of grief nearly 40 years before.  It helped but in the vacancy of my consciousness from all these things, I had to fill that void with something.  Meditation helped fill the void.

Yesterday, over the course of 2 hours or so, the doctor and his nurse made several attempts to retrieve the stuck hearing aid tip, but it was too painful each attempt.  There came a point in the midst of the tries where the doctor said as he left to give me a break and see other patients and I apologized for grimacing in pain and asking for a break, “It’s ok.  You don’t need to apologize.  There’s a side of me that just wants to hug you and tell you, ‘It’s going to be ok.’”

I was floored when he said that.  I had been thinking that since he entered the examination room. But I didn’t tell him I had thought that too.

After a few more attempts he said, “I am losing confidence that I can get this out for you.  You need to see an ear nose and throat doctor.  They will have the right equipment to get it.”

My heart sank, the last thing I wanted to do, or rather I should say the mother hen side of me wanted to hear, was that he was losing confidence.  He’s too young to lose confidence in his work be it even in a case like mine.  My mid-life began such a journey of questioning my confidence in what I do for a living.  He’s too young to start down that journey and he has such a gift as a doctor to offer his patients.

I checked out and they made a “stat” appointment request for an ENT.   On the way home I told my husband how I loved this doctor and I just wanted the best for him.  I said, “I have this great fondness and affection for him that I don’t understand.” 

I didn’t understand grief when I was 10.  I didn’t understand the death of my father at 10.  I wanted to deny it.  I wanted to pretend it wasn’t there and “get back to normal”.  I wanted to do the impossible and go back to the time when we were all a whole family and Dad hadn’t died.

I wonder, perhaps, if rather than seeing grief as this dreaded thing we all go through each time we lose someone we loved but intensely so when it is the first time we’ve encountered that loss of the death of someone we love, maybe we should see grief as being handed a new born or young angelic energy to accompany us in this journey with all the needs and nurturing and care a new born needs.  If we neglect our grief, we neglect the care and nurturing of this newborn consoling angel.  Neglect not only impacts the consoling angel but has such a dramatic impact on our own lives.  It’s only when we can hold that newborn consoling angelic energy in our arms and love it and say, “I don’t know how I am going to make it through all of this, but I am so grateful you are by my side.  With you here and me learning to care for you, to know you, we will be well on our way to a “new normal” and I’ll continue to care for you and love you always.”

I wonder, is that a way to deal with grief? to acknowledge its presence while honoring the loss of those we loved who die along our journey? And when we’ve journeyed long enough in this world of grief to desire to see it flourish and grow into maturity as it continues to give us hope to carry on and not give up without those we love physically present but knowing they are still present in all the love and joy we shared?  

I wonder, if my affection and fondness for this doctor and the many ways he’s healed me over the years is because he’s somewhat symbolic of that life, that angelic energy that was offered to accompany me on this journey as I entered the world of grief when Dad died and I am only now as an adult in mid-life cherishing how it’s grown and matured into a vibrant, consoling, up lifting life that continues to heal myself and others along this journey?

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  Matthew 5:4

I wonder.