The Girlfriend

There are things in this world that are too hard to contemplate. One of these is what my life would be like without Martha.

These days, my mind often goes back to a typical afternoon in the mid-1980s, practicing in the first office I worked at after completing medical studies in Seattle, Washington. The door to the exam room I most often used was a homemade sliding pocket door with a soda bottle filled with pennies as a counterweight, which often would stick midway in its travels, resulting in a less-than-optimal first impression.

However, like so many events after that fateful day, it performed flawlessly.

This was my father’s first office, located deep in the bowels of Brooklyn, in a neighborhood known as Bensonhurst. Several years earlier, he had relocated to Toronto, Canada, and was busy building up his practice there. By the time I took over the Brooklyn office, once the destination of the high and mighty Manhattan cognoscenti in search of health and beauty, it had unraveled into a rather moribund operation with backed up plumbing and warped wallpaneling that was just waiting to die. In fact, my original task was to prepare it for closing, at which time I would also relocate to Toronto.

In my father’s absence, it was supervised by a kindly, if crusty, old Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, who had retired and was hanging around the office to have something to do and to keep out of his wife’s way at home. This gentleman took me under his wing, and we were both surprised by the knowledge we could exchange. He remembered using many of the therapies I routinely employed on his patients decades ago, and many of the textbooks he gifted me with were chock-full of eclectic medical wisdom.

The presence of this gentleman, in addition to my godmother, who to this day I feel was perhaps the greatest nurse I ever was privileged to work with, soon convinced me that it would be a mistake to close the office. Instead, I found an apartment in the neighborhood to rent and went to work rehabilitating the clinic. Within a year, the clinic was renovated and again profitable, and soon after that, I was able to send for another naturopathic doctor from my alma mater to help with the added workload.

So when I rolled that creaky door aside such a long, long, time ago, little did I realize that my life would not ever be the same again.

For what befell my eyes was the most beautiful face I have ever seen, beaming a 1000-watt smile. ‘Hello, I’m Martha, and my yoga teacher recommended you to help me work out a healthy diet.’

Over the next few months, we became quite friendly, although I had strict, built-in guard rails about mixing business with pleasure, and she had a rather old-fashioned innocence and virtue.

However, after realizing that this person was indeed quite special and my rule was simply going to deprive me of a once-in-a-lifetime chance at happiness, I went ahead and suggested that we meet on a Sunday afternoon, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and grab a bite a a local macrobiotic restaurant.

At the time, Martha was a very high-level executive with the publishing company that produced Esquire magazine, whereas I was a doctor in an unknown medical discipline, practicing it in an unlicensed state. Martha lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I lived in a house on Staten Island that I had bought at an auction of repossessed properties owned by Housing and Urban Development for $29,002.00*.

Thus ended our professional relationship, or as Martha liked to say, “I gained a husband, but lost my doctor.’

A year later, we were married.

In our nearly four decades of marriage, we’ve parented two marvelous children, dealt with fame, fortune, and disaster, all the while remaining best friends. We’ve tried to keep each other somewhat humble and grateful in our more fruitful times, while also bolstering and girding each other for the task at hand when faced with difficulties and emergencies.

The famous injunction ‘In sickness and in health’ has certainly assumed new significance these last few years, as I’ve struggled with my inherited form of lung disease. During that time, The Girlfriend has been the rock that kept me on track to my current stage of healing.

Lung transplants are not for the faint-hearted, as the amount of work needed to be performed to simply qualify for transplantation is only exceeded by the protocol requirements of the post-transplant life. Martha has been there the entire time, from coordinating visits and lab tests, to driving me to pulmonary rehab, for being my arms and legs in the early post-transplant days, to being a source of consolation and support when things took a turn for the worse.

How does one express gratitude for this level of lovingkindness?

The only answer that resonates is to use my remaining time to try to find ways to be a better friend, lover, and person.

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* At the auction, this figure beat a bid of $29,001.00, causing the room to erupt in laughter.