Who are you, when the title falls away?
Not Dr. John. Not Daddy. Not choir singer or hospice companion. Just… me.
I’ve wrestled with that question. Still do. Because grief don’t just take a person—it peels back everything you thought you were. When Angela died, I lost more than my wife. I lost the version of myself who believed in guarantees.
At first, I filled the hollow with work. Medicine’s good at giving you a role to play. Folks need you. The pager buzzes. The day gets shaped by other people’s pain. But when the boys went to sleep, and the clinic was dark, I’d sit in that quiet house and feel stripped bare.
And it was there—in the silence—that I started to meet the man beneath all the doing.
He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t have all the answers. But he was steady. Tender. Tired. Still singing.
I’ve come to believe that your essential self isn’t something you build—it’s what’s left when you stop performing. It’s the voice that stays when the applause fades. It’s the part of you that holds your grandmother’s hands in your own and knows, without speaking, that this is holy.
When I visit dying patients now, I don’t introduce myself as a doctor first. I sit. I listen. Sometimes I hum a hymn they recognize. And in that moment, I’m not playing a role. I’m just being—fully, quietly, me.
So I’ll ask you: If every job, every label, every expectation fell away… who would be left?
And could you love that person?
I’m learning to. Slowly. Gently. With the same grace I offer others.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.