I left my wife on Valentine’s Day.

It was early that morning, but it wasn’t even morning yet.  The goats were not yet bleating, and the roosters weren’t even crowing.  Our bedroom was pitch-dark save for the faint ray of light emanating from the living room through the crack in our door.  I leaned over, kissed her softly on the cheek, whispered “Happy Valentine’s Day,” then “I love you,” and then slowly exited our bedroom.  I grabbed my duffle bag, my book bag, and then I grabbed you, embracing you close to my chest.  We left the house and entered the garage with but a few bumps and bangs, hoping not to awaken my wife and children.

There, the dogs stared at you, at me, wagging their tails – unsure of excitement or fear.  Then they barked, they barked incessantly…for they did not recognize you.  I hurriedly put you in the back seat, secured you with not one but two seatbelts (akin to a young mother toting her precious cargo, her newborn child, in a car seat for the first time).  I threw my bags in the trunk and then loved on the dogs, on Star, on Sky, on Hazel – rubbing their heads, rubbing their bellies, and allowing them to lick my face while trying to forget where those tongues and mouths had been overnight while we slept.

I left my wife on Valentine’s Day…

…to bury you.  You were dead.  Yet you were still alive.  You haunted me since the day you died.  And I had to bury you, to rid you from my life, my family, to move on.  So, I left my wife on Valentine’s Day to dispose of you, to lose you.  You were dead, but you still had a pulse.  You were dead, but your mind still terrorized mine.  You were dead, but you still appeared in my dreams…or were they nightmares?  Just for the record, nightmares are dreams too.  You were dead.  And I couldn’t live with you in my life anymore.  So, as I promised you, promised me, I decided to bury you…so you can rest eternally, so the sun can shine upon you every morning, so you can stop haunting me as you have done so the last few years.  I decided on that manufactured day of love to leave my wife (and children) to be with you, not out of spite, but out of love and passion, to rid you from me, from us, to rekindle what I once had with my wife and family.

You and I have been together longer than I and my wife.  We laughed, we loved, we shared secrets together – separately from my wife and children, and often alone.  And because of you, I fostered relationships in medicine, with strangers, with patients, with friends, with colleagues.

You were there with me when I resuscitated my first infant, when I froze momentarily, when I lost the confidence to save her.  You intervened.  You helped me.  And today, that infant lives; she’s 24 years old now and recently married…because of you, because of me.

You were with me when that 24-year-old male bled profusely from that fungating tumor in his throat, exsanguinating, when he was drowning in his own blood.  You were there, not the Ear Nose and Throat physician I summoned hours earlier, while he lay there trying to die, aspirating his own blood.  All I could do was watch him die, but you wouldn’t let me.  You helped me, you guided me, as I secured his airway blindly, yet successfully, as his blood spewed onto my face shield.  You and I worked on him valiantly.  And then you helped me load him onto the MedFlight helicopter waiting for us on the helipad, with the rotors buzzing.  He too survived, walked out of Ohio State University Medical Center several days later only to return to our hospital, to thank me, to thank you, for not giving up on him as many others had done before.

You were with me during COVID…for the two years and beyond when everyone else abandoned us, forgot about us, when they called us “heroes.”  You were my hero.  Unlike many prior clinical situations in my career, I could not save my patients.  Many, most of them, died.  Most of them gasped for air, most of them suffocated, and many remained unconscious (thankfully).  And all I could do, all we could do, was watch them die perilously, often alone, without their families, without loved ones by their sides.  And because of you, with you, we became their surrogate families, their loved ones.  And when they gasped their last breaths, when their hearts beat one last time, when their minds no longer sensed the unknown which awaited them, you and I cried with them, for them.  And each time someone died during the pandemic, a little bit of me and little bit of you died too.  But you, I, we relied on each other and somehow survived the trauma, the toll, the nightmares we were living.

And then, that fatal day, December 1, 2023, you died that day.  You left me, even though you promised me you never would.  When I returned home from work that day, I approached my wife, lovingly, and with a crackle in my voice, explained to her that I lost my job that day, that I was “let go” after dedicating and devoting 23 ½ years of my life to that hospital and our community, that you died that day.  Speechless, she shed a tear or two, hugged and embraced me, and whispered into my ear, “I love you.”

Two months have passed since you died.  And now the time was right to bury you.  So, you and I left on Valentine’s Day, without my wife, on that manufactured day of love.  I drove off that morning in sheer darkness.  Several hours passed, and I was nearing the West Virginia turnpike before the sun’s rays pierced over the horizon.  Ten hours passed since we left home and finally arrived at our hotel in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The sun was behind us, on the sound side, and soon would bid us farewell until morning.  I couldn’t bury you in the dark.  We checked in to our room.  I grabbed us a “fancy sandwich” from our favorite gas station deli up the road, the one we frequented every vacation here over the last 27 years.  I tried to share my sandwich with you, but you wouldn’t have any.  You didn’t say a word to me the whole drive down to the beach.  You wouldn’t look at me in the rearview mirror.  You didn’t even move.  You were dead.  You ARE dead!  Yet, I expected a response from you.  Night befell us quickly, and I yearned for some sleep.  We anticipated a long arduous day ahead of us the next day.  I got us a King bed and oceanfront room, but I still couldn’t get any response from you.  I lay you down on the right side of the bed, and then I lay on the left side, the side closest to the ocean.  I couldn’t sleep.  The room was dark, yet the scant moonlight silhouetting the ocean gleamed through our window.  The soothing sound of ocean waves lulled us to sleep while the thundering roar later pierced through me, through you, awakening us every so often, reminding us of the misery awaiting us in the morning.

I awakened early that next morning.  After downing a quick cup of coffee, I grabbed you, dressed you, dressed myself, after we freshened up of course, and then I walked down to the beach, again embracing you close to my chest, my heart.  Darkness was fading and daybreak was upon us.  The sun had yet to break over the horizon.  Her rays were hovering over the ocean, however.  I walked down the beach with you against my chest.  We walked, 2.9 miles to be exact, to Jennette’s Pier.  I paid the $2 admission sightseeing fee.  I didn’t have to pay for you; you were admitted for free.

As we walked down the pier, the longest one on the Outer Banks, we looked to our right and noticed the 9/11 house, the one we vacationed in, the one where you and I witnessed that second airplane pierce through that second tower on live TV, while sipping coffee and while Nicholas (then 5 months old, now almost 23 years old) sat on my lap, slobbering.  And then, you and I watched in horror, as the towers fell, one after the other.  You were there with me when the towers collapsed, not my wife.  She and the rest of my family, my in-laws, were still sleeping when New York was burning.

We continued our walk down the pier.  The footboards, the weathered ones, most of them, creaked and cracked as we walked.  We couldn’t hear the creaking and cracking, however, as the waves roared and crashed beneath us.  But, with each step, I felt, we felt, the cracking under our soles.  As we approached the end of the pier, not a single fisherman was fishing, save one.  It was winter, and it was cold.  And although we were in North Carolina, not in Ohio, and although the sun was shining brightly and the skies were bluer than any blue I witnessed in recent months, it was cold.  It was 25 degrees colder than the mainland, and the wind sliced through me, through my soul, through you.  I stood there at the end of the pier, clutching you against my chest, and we stared together at the glistening ocean waves before us and the trail of sunshine sparkling over the water stretching from the horizon to the beach behind us.

I gazed at you one last time, prayed for you privately, and, as I promised you many years ago, I prepared to launch you, to bury you, into the Atlantic Ocean…so you can rest eternally, so the sun may shine upon you as it shined that day.  But as I stretched my arms over the railing, you grabbed onto me, you clenched your nails into my arms, and you screamed at me, begging me…not to let go, not to throw you into the ocean.  You were dead!  But you awakened that day…for the first time since we left my wife on Valentine’s Day.  You bartered with me.  You pleaded with me.  And then you softly invited me, begged me, to jump with you, into the ocean.  I thought, momentarily, about the likes of Dr. Lorna Breen, Dr. Scott Jolley, and the likes of many others who listened to the likes of you.  I looked over to my right, to the lone fisherman casting his line, oblivious to me, to you, to us, and feared he could hear us, see us, witness our struggles.  He did not.

I brought you closer to me, again.  I embraced you, again.  I prayed over you, over me, again.  And then I kissed you, one last time.  Then, with every ounce of energy I possessed, every skeletal muscle fiber flexing simultaneously, I heaved you over the rails and threw you into the ocean, alone.  And I buried you in the Atlantic…as I promised you many years ago.  You didn’t make a splash, not even a sound…not that I could even hear such a splash anyway as the ocean waves crashed and roared below.  I was done.  I was done with you.  You were dead anyway.  And now, you are out of my life.  I bid you farewell one last time, turned around, and walked back toward the pier house gazing at the paralyzed wind turbines, blades missing and broken (weathered) and the shadows of the solar panels, also missing and weathered, at the failed attempt at renewable energy that was at Jennette’s Pier.

I climbed into my car, fired up the engine, opened my sunroof, cracked open my driver’s side and passenger’s side windows, cranked up the heat to offset the blistering wind, shifted into first gear, popped my clutch, and sped off onto NC Highway 12 onto Hatteras Island.  Over the ensuing few days, I drove almost 2000 miles, listened to podcast after podcast, sports radio, Country music, Christian music, Jimmy Buffett (may he rest in peace), Classical music, Macedonian folk music, and oftentimes, drove in silence while savoring the views, the memories, the sentiments you and I shared.  But…I did not look back.  I did not turn around.  I drove…and I forgot about you.

Along the way, I met up with family, friends, colleagues.  We shared memories, laughs, thoughts, emotions, meals, coffee, and even a beer or two.  And in doing so, with each shared moment, I smiled.  I smiled a little wider, a little brighter, and, finally, with ease.  I did not force the smile as I had since December.  It was finally genuine.

I returned home last evening — refreshed, reborn, after 4 days away from my wife and family and nearly 2000 miles of driving.  I unloaded my car, unloaded my laundry, showered, and then sat on the couch next to my wife, separated by my 18 y.o. son who was coddling his mother.  I grasped her hand and smiled at her, at him.  She smiled in return, embraced my hand in hers, and asked “How was your trip?”  And with that “butterflies in your stomach” sensation, I returned another smile, caressed her hand, apologized for leaving her on Valentine’s Day, that manufactured day of love, so I could bury you, bury my dead soul, and return a better man, a better husband, a better father.

I responded…“I love you.”  She clasped my hand, like the old days when were first dating, when we were newly in love, long before marriage and long before kids, and whispered… “Welcome Home.”

2/18/2024

Zoran Naumovski is a hospitalist physician in southern Ohio. He has practiced medicine for over 24 years in his small town community, caring for many local friends, neighbors, and community members. He first started practice in primary care in 2000 and later transitioned to hospital-based medicine in 2008. Over the years, he has cared for many critically-ill patients, including ones he befriended from his primary care days. The COVID Pandemic nearly broke him as he relentlessly cared for his community, along with his healthcare team, during a brutal two-year battle where he witnessed the deaths of so many community members. Since the Pandemic, Naumovski’s soul has forever been damaged and nearly destroyed. In an effort to save his soul and rekindle the joys in medicine, he enrolled in Autumn 2023 in an online MFA program through Lenoir-Rhyne University, focusing on narrative medicine. He holds a BA in English (Creative Writing focus) from Ohio State University (1992) but only recently started writing, roughly 30 years after obtaining his BA. Naumovski has been published in recent years in pulsevoices.org, KevinMD.com, and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. You can find him on LinkedIN: linkedin.com/in/zoran-naumovski-md-462169340.