Yesterday I left home at 7h00 for an 8h30 appointment with my gynaecologist of almost 27 years. It’s easy to work out how long he has been my gynaecologist because I just have to add a few months to my eldest child’s age, and Ben is 26 and four months today. Because I live in France, neighbouring Geneva, and since I live on the Jura side, not the Alps side, access to medical facilities is a tad tricky. The nearest hospital is a good 45-minute drive away (40 minutes at 4 am, as we discovered when Julia was about to be born), and yesterday, given Monday morning back-to-school-and-work rush hour traffic, I gave myself a bit longer.
My gynae is close to retirement. He must be, because he’s at least a few years older than I am. And I love him. I’d say I was mildly in love with him back in my 30s when I was having lots of babies. Always kind and gentle, encouraging, positive — and when I had two at-risk pregnancies, absolutely determined to help me keep the growing girls where they needed to be, even when that meant months of bedrest, first at home, then in hospital.
I’ve seen various facets of his job up close, and with those, various images of his face have been imprinted in my memory. How his face looks during a routine annual smear check-up is quite different from the expression he wears when doing a uterine scan. I remember the focus in his face when I had an amniocentesis during my pregnancy with Julia. I also remember how his expression shifted — from pleasant and relaxed to calm and firm — when, at 4½ months gestation, he said: “You need to go over to the hospital now — yes, I know you live an hour away — we can sort all of that out later. You need to go. Now.”
I remember the care in his face when he visited me in the evenings, presumably at the end of his shift, while I whiled away hours, days, months in hospital in pre-internet times (Tolkien got me through a lot). And I remember the joy in his expression when he safely delivered each of our beautiful babies.
His face crumpled when I told him Mike had died. He’d come to know Mike, too. Mike had been a regular visitor during my hospital stays, often bringing me a proper (decaf) cappuccino from the café over the road that roasted its own beans. He’d spent time on the hospital room floor playing brum-brum cars and Lego with Ben, while I was on bed rest, trying to keep Megan where she needed to be. He met the whole family.
His face crumpled again when I told him of Julia’s suicide, now six years ago.
And even though I know he has thousands — literally thousands — of patients, I always felt remembered. For years, I was the woman who had “accouché son fils comme une fleur” (given birth to Ben like a flower unfurling). For years, we’d touch on shared interests: classical music, skiing, trail running, and wide open spaces. And in more recent years, I became the one navigating life following the deaths of Mike and Julia.
He always remembered details — about my work, my family, my passions — far beyond what I’d expect from a medical professional. So yes, he’s been an important figure in my life.
But yesterday, I went to say goodbye.
Partly because I sense he’ll retire soon. Partly because, when he and his merry band of male gynaecologists — all of a similar age — do retire, finding a new gynaecologist will become a challenge. And partly because I’d heard that a young female gynaecologist had recently set up shop at the same hospital, and I wanted to get onto her patient list before it filled up.
I booked the appointment back in March (six months out, because that’s the waiting time), knowing it was just to say goodbye. I knew I was taking a slot, and of course, I’d pay the usual consultation fee. But the rendez-vous was simply to thank him and to mark the end of something meaningful. I even wrote him a card with words of appreciation.
But it didn’t go as I expected — or hoped — it would.
What was I expecting? A ten-minute exchange. Some updates. A smile on both sides. A final goodbye. Perhaps a wish to “go well, be well” before we each got on with the rest of our day, me now heading back into worse commuter traffic.
Instead, it was short and abrupt. Almost curt. Not quite criticism of my effort to schlep over just to say goodbye, but a palpable Gallic shrug conveying, “why bother?”
He did open the card, read it, and say thank you with a flash of a smile.
But I was out of there within minutes.
I’ve been mulling over the experience. On one level, it’s no biggy. My ego isn’t crushed. I wanted to make the effort, and I’m not resentful about that. It’s more that my intention — to make a good ending, to attend to the ending — was somehow rebuffed.
His response felt unexpected, but perhaps it’s the norm.
We don’t do endings well.
We — societally, and of course I generalise — avoid them, postpone them, shirk them.
We skip over them if we can.
At what cost?
We miss opportunities to realise the impermanence of things. Of everything. Of relationships — whether a one-off interaction with a bartender as you buy a drink, an almost 27-year relationship with a gynaecologist, or a 60+ year marriage to a loved one.
Everything ends.
Everything is impermanent, just on different scales.
A mountain lives longer than a fruit fly, but both die or dissolve over time.
And we mammals really grieve when endings we don’t want — or don’t anticipate — come into our lives. Whether it’s the loss of a child, a spouse, a limb, a job, our health or our looks… it doesn’t matter. We grieve.
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t grieve — far from it.
But I am wondering whether we might become more familiar and skilful with the emotions of grief — more Grief-Wise — if we attended more often, and more consciously, more intentionally, to endings.
How would it be if we took longer to notice what arises in us when we face an ending — any ending? It might not be full-on grief, but there’s often an undercurrent of bittersweetness, poignancy, or gratitude tinged with sadness.
If we practised being with endings more — noticing them, leaning into them, sensing the emotions they stir — then no, it wouldn’t make the grief of losing a child or spouse, a limb or a job, our health or our looks, easy or easier. But I sense it might make such losses less of a shocking surprise.
And maybe, if more of us were more practised in being with endings, we’d feel less isolated and alone, less of an outcast, when the big ones eventually come for us.
I’m still noodling this one.
Let me know what you think.
And maybe take a moment to wonder —
What ending in your life might want a little more attention, before it slips away?
