Notes on a passing, five months later

I’d been procrastinating for weeks but finally made myself do it today: phone the office of the doctor a friend had recommended to ask if the practice was accepting new patients. The answer was yes, and I was able to schedule an appointment for a couple of months from now, which is just what I wanted.

But it’s still upsetting, because I’ve gone to the same doctor for yearly physicals for the past 11 years, and his death last May came as a shock to me. It’s not even like I knew him well. But just as every relationship we have is different, death in any relationship affects us differently. Reading about my doctor’s passing in the newspaper last May was sad in itself; scheduling a yearly physical with a new physician made it real to me.

Other than the two pregnancies during which I saw him monthly, I saw him exactly once a year. And given the circumstances, that seemed like enough. For twenty minutes or so we'd talk -- first seriously, about any health issues I was having (mercifully, there were virtually none) -- and then briefly but jovially about his three passions: baseball, fishing on Martha's Vineyard, and his family. Tributes to each of those interests decorated his office; he was easy to get to know that way, so I had no trouble finding things to talk about with him over the decade I knew him.

Pregnancy books give detailed lists on how to select your obstetrician based on shared values and principles related to childbearing. I read those lists carefully and then chose Dr. Hendelman based on the fact that I knew how to get to his office, he was affiliated with the hospital where I wanted to deliver, and I liked his first name, Jay. But I knew I'd made a good choice the first time I visited his practice. After an exam, he told me to dress and then meet him in his office. When I entered, he was reading the sports section of the daily paper. Not off examining another patient; not returning phone calls. Just waiting for me to come in and talk to him. I loved that about his practice.

He was a voracious sports fan. My first child was born during a Red Sox game; I specifically remember the labor nurse rather sternly asking Dr. Hendelman to please stop ducking out of the delivery room to check the score because he was slowing down the process. My second child was also born during baseball season and I remember noting with some relief as we drove to the hospital for her delivery that the Red Sox weren't playing that night. My husband was wiser. "So what game are you watching?" he asked Dr. Hendelman as my labor progressed. The doctor sheepishly admitted he had the Boston College game on in the physicians' lounge.

My last visit was just three months before he died, and I said it like I always do: “Good to see you, hope not to see you for another year.” Usually when I said that, luck was on my side; I enjoyed good health and didn’t see him for another year. Now, I look back knowing that the luck was his as well as mine each year, but his ran out. He is gone now.

There are probably hundreds of people for whom his presence was frequent rather than yearly. There are his daughters and wife, familiar to me only from the framed photos in his office. There are presumably relatives and friends and colleagues and neighbors and fellow temple members and childhood pals and former med school classmates. They will feel the loss far more keenly than I will.

But I’ll miss him too. Because he was part of my life: a big part of it in the months leading up to my two children’s births, a huge part of it for the few hours on two different summer nights that I spent in labor. He was the first person to set human hands on either of my children.

And he was someone I looked forward to seeing once a year, every year. Until now. And so I, too, feel the loss. Dr. Jay Hendelman, MD, OB/GYN. Rest in peace.