I was lonely.
I know: it sounds like the perfect setting (or excuse) for
an act born of bad judgment. Her name was xxx. She was 33 and I, 58. This is
our ‘story’.
I met xxx for the first time, I think, 3 years ago. My
family and I had just moved to Buffalo, New York. For the first 4 years of
marriage, my wife had been a stay-at-home mom, because our daughter was still little
(5 to 9 years old, in thse years). The move to Buffalo was exciting for both of
us. I was moving from working for a Clinic to being a professor at a
University. I was going to be an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine &
Pediatrics. I would practice medicine, teach students and residents and get
some time to do research. My wife, Amy was excited too. She had always wanted
to do a PhD in math and this was her chance. She had already been accepted into
the program by the time we moved here.
Back to xxx. I came home one day from work and there was a
shorter, black-haired, brown-eyed woman sitting on our couch with my wife. She
had larger eyes and curly black hair that fell on her shoulders.
“Vijay! This is xxx. She’s in the math program with me.”
Amy said this by way of introduction. xxx smiled and said ‘hi’. Amy was 42 at
the time, and xxx looked much younger. I could not tell how much younger. She
looked in her early 30s. From her appearance, she seemed Latin.
“Where are you from, xxx?” I asked.
“Oh, I was born here. But my parents are from --- (a country in Latin America.”
“Que bien!
Gusto conocerlo.” I
said, smiling.
“Vijay speaks Spanish, xxx.” Amy added.
Over the next 3 years, xxx would come over often. Mostly,
Amy and she would sit together, chatting, or working separately on math in Amy’s
office or the table in the hall. Sometimes, xxx would cook something (she
loved to cook). She helped Amy clean the house a couple of times (“xxx loves
to clean!” Amy would explain.) xxx always said ‘hi’ even when neither Amy nor
Phoebe would acknowledge my return home. We exchanged a few words every now and
then, sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English.
Amy had other friends in the program, but xxx was the one
that came over the most. In November, 2018, xxx had a car accident. The
accident totaled her car. Fortunately, she was okay, except for some contusions.
She came home.
“xxx! Let Vijay take a look at you! He is the best doctor
I know. In fact, you should become his patient.” Amy was saying this to xxx as I stood in front of them. Despite our relationship falling apart, Amy had
always maintained that I was an excellent doctor and my patients were lucky to
me. She blamed my devotion to my patients for some of what destroyed our
marriage.
Anyway, xxx became my patient. I treated me through her
recovery from the injuries. I treated other issues that arose along the way. I
would intermittently get texts from her with medical questions. This was not unusual
however, as I allowed a lot of my patients to text me in this way. If I saw her
at home visiting Amy, I would inquire about how things were going medically and
we would have a little ‘office visit’ in our living room, with Amy acting as
the chaperone.
Of course, our marriage was going from bad to worse. Towards
the end, I would sit in my office in the basement of the house, where I slept
at night as well. Amy and I spoke very little to each other. xxx was polite
and caught in this awkward cold war.
Amy and I were divorced in January, 2020 after failed
attempts at counselling. Amy and Phoebe did not move out until May, 2020. Phoebe
was visiting her other mother in Wisconsin when Amy moved their things out and
found her own place.
By then COVID was ravaging our country and the world. I volunteered
as a doctor to help in New York City during the ‘surge’ – the explosion of
cases there. I agreed to go to NYC for a week. When I mentioned this to Amy
(xxx was visiting at the time), Amy asked, “when will you be going?”
xxx came up to me. Her eyes met mine as she said in a
soft, pleading voice, “Don’t go, Vijay!”
Looking back, I cannot tell if she was concerned about the
risk that I would be at working in with COVID patients in an overflowing, taxed
system, or if she was concerned for her friend. Amy did not say anything. When
I returned a week later from New York, the house was mostly empty. Amy had
moved most of her things, furniture, bed, books, kitchen stuff and lamps out of
the house.
Ironically, that first week a terrible loneliness set in. I
say ironically, because for the better part of 2 years, we did not share much
together. We had stopped sleeping in the same bed 3 years before then and when
I was at home, I was in my little office in the basement. We cooked our meals
separately and barely exchanged any words. Phoebe was a teenage by then, and
shut herself in her room, on her computer with friends most of the time.
I walked within what seemed like a large house, picking newspaper
off the floor, moving left behind items to the corners to tidy the place up a
bit. The house was quiet and dark. Amy had taken the television with her.
Before, the television was almost always on in the hall. Now there was silence.
“Vijay, are you going to church on Sunday? Can I go with
you?”
I read the text on my phone in between seeing patients in a
busy clinic. The message was from xxx.
“Of course, xxx! Do you want to come home and we ride
there together, want me to pick you up, or will you meet me there?” I texted
back.
xxx had come to church with my family and I when we went,
several times. She was not regular, but then, neither were Amy and Phoebe. I
tended to go regularly if I was not working.
Over the next 3 weeks, xxx would meet me in the church
parking lot and we would go into church together. We attended the 9 am service.
xxx preferred to meet me there because she felt she might run late getting to
church. She did not ‘dress up’ for church, like Amy used to do. She came in
jeans and a shirt with a winter pull-over.
The first time we went, I had to leave her after the service
to pick up Phoebe. I promised her that I would buy her breakfast the following
week. The next week, after church, we went to the Pancake House for breakfast. It
was great to talk with her, going between Spanish and English. I got to learn
more about her and loved spending time with her. I remember that first
breakfast. When we checked into the restaurant, we were told there would be
wait. They offered to text us when our table would be ready. It was a chilly
morning, but we both had our jackets. We walked onto Main Street, and strolled
down towards the Ellicott Creek. It was beautiful to see the little town of
Williamsville with its quaint shops. xxx had been to the Creek before, but I
hadn’t. As we strayed off the road into the Island Park, we chatted and saw the
little rapids in the river. We smiled and laughed. It was easy to talk to
xxx. Unlike my conversations with Amy, where I felt I had to step over
landmines that could change the mood in a second, xxx was soft, easy going
and seemed interested in what I had to say.
Our little walk was cut short by the restaurant texting us.
We went back and had a great breakfast. We had eaten there before, with Amy and
Phoebe along, after church. We had great conversation. She told me that in the
future she would like to maybe teach math, using questions that were more
interesting to girls and minorities, than the kind of questions currently used
in classes and texts. I smiled at her enthusiasm and her vision. Here was
someone who was a first generation immigrant to go to college, a female and
from a Latin American country who was in the process of getting a doctorate…
and in math, to boot. I was excited to see the kind of leader and impact she
could have on more girls, more minorities getting into science and math because
of her.
I ordered an order of gluten-free pancakes for Amy and for
Phoebe. xxx mentioned she would pass by there after this, since we were close
to their new place. After breakfast, she drove to Amy’s house and I drove home.
After that first week, I began to notice that I was
developing romantic feelings towards xxx. It felt a bit odd. I felt in love. I
didn’t think I could feel that way still, at my age. To me, she was beautiful,
smart, passionate and had wonderful, selfless goals I was excited about. I
looked forward to Sunday morning, worshipping with her in church and breakfast
after. I had daytime fantasies of a life together with her. I thought of her as
my object of affection as I listened to Latin rock music, ballads or merengue
driving home from work.
Jose Jose has song that goes like this:
Mentiras
son todas mentiras
Cosas que dice la gente
Decir que este amor es prohibido
Que tengo 40 y tu 20
Que yo
soy otoño en tu vida
Y tu eres dulce primavera
No saben que guardo un verano
Que cuando te miro te quema
40 y 20
40 y 20
Es el amor lo que importa
Y no lo que diga la gente
I used to laugh at the song. I laughed because I thought
that it was a clever way for this 40 year old guy to justify his affection
toward a girl literally half his age. But now, I, a 58 year old guy was in love
with a 33 year old girl. Why, when I was 40, she was 15. 15! What was I
thinking? Amy and I had an age difference too. When we met, I was 50 and she
was 37 – a 13 years difference. Maybe I
am attracted to younger women. But then, aren’t all men? Isn’t that more of a
sexual attraction? I thought about that. I did find women most beautiful
between 30 and 40. I found them mature, more beautiful than pretty, able to be
good conversationalists and companions. I loved xxx because she seemed to
share so many more of my values and culture than Amy and I had. She loved the
Lord like I did. She had spoken of a previous long-term relationship she had
and she had supported her boyfriend, took care of him and wanted to see him
succeed in everything he did. In this, she spoke as someone who seemed more
similar to the women of my culture. Perhaps Latin culture is more like Indian
culture in this way than is American (Caucasian) culture. Perhaps all this was
racist profiling.
Problem 2: xxx was Amy’s friend. I met xxx through my
ex-wife. People might think she was the reason my marriage to Amy fell apart.
In all truth, I did not develop romantic feelings for xxx until months after
our divorce. Still, what a way to meet your future soulmate.
Problem 3: xxx was my patient! I had NEVER viewed a single
patient in my past romantically. I am not blind. I have found my patients
attractive, but there is a professional barrier and a clinical line I would
never cross. It is unethical to date one’s patient. There is a unequal position
of advantage a doctor has over his or her patient, with the intimate knowledge
of their past medical history and the patient’s dependence on them for medical
care. What would I do with that?
Amore Prohibido.
I remember reading that when Woody Allen was asked about his
falling in love with a 27 year old girl that was an adopted daughter of Mia Farrow
with whom he had a relationship before.
“The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to those
things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that.”
They have been married for over 20 years and still going
strong. He was 62 and she 27.
After the second week of church and breakfast, I got a text
one Friday.
“Vijay, I am sorry that I cannot come to church with you
anymore. Amy is a little uncomfortable with this. She has not asked me not to
go to church with you, but I don’t want to do anything to cause any distress to
my friend.”
We exchanged a few texts in which I mentioned that I
understood and would not to do anything to harm her relationship with Amy. They
were friends first and I got to know her only because of that.
Shortly after that, with COVID cases rising in the area,
church went ‘virtual’. By mutual agreement, I would text xxx before the
services to check that she was up and attending. It was our way of mutually
encouraging one another to attend services.
We continued to text each other in relation to medical
questions. After one such text, xxx asked me if I would come to her home to
pray over her apartment. She felt there was a presence of evil there that woke
her up at night. She sounded scared. I had prayed with people in these
situations before. I agreed to come over and shared a verse from Scripture with
her. The night before I was to go over there, she texted me that she had a
headache and would like to postpone the visit. I agreed, although wondered about
the whole thing. That was that. I never did go over to her apartment.
That’s the ‘story’. Here it ends. Nothing actually happened.
There was no physical contact. There was no sexting. There was not even any
mushy talk. There were romantic fantasies (in my mind, anyway).
What if xxx had been older, or I younger? What if we had
met in a different way? What if she was not my patient?
What if I threw all this ‘Amor Prohibido’ thing to the wind
and did the ‘Woody Allen’ thing?
Well, a few things come out of this:
1.
I realize that I can still
fall in love. I thought that with 2 marriages under my belt and being 58 years
old, I was done. I guess not.
2.
I am lonely. What to do is
not clear. What if love passes me by and I die alone? I feel alone and without
a companion. Is this going to be the rest of my life? Will I be this eccentric
single, old man with no life – a workaholic with nothing outside of work?
3.
What kind of love and life
can a 58 year old man with diabetes and high blood pressure and cholesterol
have? Would it be fair to visit this upon a woman? Do I have a right expect a
companion who will love me, want to cook for and take care of me? I would give
everything to her – love her, take interest in her life and career, provide all
her financial needs and aim to settle her even after I am gone. Is this how
this works?
4.
They say ‘You only live
once!’ Am I being too cautious or over analyzing things? The Christian and
Rational person in me sees this as untenable.
For now, it looks like my story with xxx is over. I am
still her doctor and have not crossed any borders there.
To be honest, I do not know if she had or could develop romantic
feelings for me. In one of her emails she mentioned something about seeing me
like a father/brother/mentor. I suspected she was conflicted – torn between
(maybe) having a relationship with me but maybe she sensed my attraction to her
and was embarrassed and awkwardly trying to discourage me. I know she is
lonely. I know she has no present relationship. I know she wished she was in a
relationship with someone. She mentions she would love to be in a relationship
with someone who has a career, versus an unsettled person. She is in the PhD program. She is ahead of
Amy, but still struggling with her thesis and does not have an end date in
sight. This weighs on her.
xxx, I hope you meet someone and that it is magical. I
hope he is a little older than you, well established in his career, able to
provide for you and provide a house and home for you. I pray you graduate with
your doctorate, get married and have children of your own. You have so much
love and nurturing to give. I am proud of your plan to support women in STEM
and particularly encourage people from ethnic groups not currently represented
or under-represented in Science and Math. I know you can be a beacon, a teacher
and a leader. I pray you meet a godly man who will support your dreams, be the
rock in your life and that you both have many years of a happy, wonderful
marriage with children.
