In Case of Emergency

In an effort to stay among the land of the living as long as possible and identify anything which might be working against that goal, I dragged myself into the doctor’s office for a physical.

It was a place I’d never been before, which meant filling out stacks of paperwork. This is usually no hardship for me, it’s been my role in the family for the couple of decades we’ve been moving around the planet. I’m quick and efficient with a good memory of everyone’s medical history, blood types, and drug allergies. But this time I hit a question I couldn’t immediately answer.

After 30 years of filling in “Michael Chase, husband” under Emergency Contact & Relationship, I was forced to consider who exactly should be the person who gets the call if something awful happens. I was already struggling a little emotionally that day because anything having to do with doctors is mildly triggering, but also because I’d only read the street address of the doctor’s office, not the name of the building which is the more typical way of finding your destination in Hong Kong. When I arrived I was stunned to find it was in the same building as Michael’s office, a place I used to go at least every other week to meet him for lunch where we’d walk over and see the flamingos in Kowloon Park, or join him after work to grab dinner together. I hadn’t been there even once in all of 2025 during Michael’s battle with cancer, and suddenly I had to walk in with the blatantly obvious yet suddenly new realization that I will never be meeting him there again.

I’d already had a little cry in a quiet corner of the building’s lobby before composing myself for the elevator ride up to the 15th floor, only to be confronted with the blank space next to emergency contact. I felt a squeeze in my chest, a numbness in my extremities. A small question floated into my mind while clutching all this paperwork… would the doctor be able to tell my heart was broken just by listening to it? Would he look into my eyes and immediately know the tragedy they have seen?

Because we’ve moved whole continents and countries quite regularly, we’ve often had to fill in the “Emergency Contact” form for our kids’ schools with the names of people we’ve only just met.

We in turn have been other people’s emergency contacts who’ve been in the same situation. When you live abroad and register with your consulate, they always ask for a contact not in the country with you who can be reached in case of disaster. When we first left America in 2001 it was my parents, but as they became less mobile with age, we swapped to Michael’s sister Heidi in 2016 because we were living in Shanghai and she had a China visa. After everything we went through with Michael and the number of times either Princess Margaret or Queen Mary Hospitals called me for important information or to give me dreadful middle-of-the-night updates from the ICU in his final month, I know how important it is to pick the right person or to be listed as the emergency contact for your loved ones. 2025 taught me there are in fact instances where you will get a call if you are the person listed.

Since my sons are here with me in Hong Kong, it was one of their names and numbers which I ultimately filled in that day at the doctor’s office. And no, the doctor could not tell just from listening that my heart was broken. But he did listen to me talk about my Beloved and handed me a tissue when I started crying after he asked if I’d been under any recent stress. I laugh/cried (comedy being my typical coping mechanism in dark times) while replying, “How recent? Like just now in the waiting room filling out paperwork, or walking into this building which will forever be the last place my husband ever worked, or the eight months I’ve been forced to go on existing since losing him, or the year before that when we dropped everything except eating, sleeping, and tending to his precarious and precious health while everything else crumbled around us?” Yeah, I really said that. Then I stopped the laughing part and just sobbed. Sigh.

After the appointment (every preliminary result looks great, I’m the very picture of physical health which feels incredibly wrong considering the state of my emotional and mental health) I took myself to an early solo dinner in the building next door at a place Michael and I frequented, then bought some mossy green nail polish for a couple bucks because I’m always on the lookout for a good green enamel. My friend Melissa taught me long ago that a little treat following a hard thing is always a good idea, and it was.

There’s a wistful saying about the early years of motherhood, that as they grow you never know when it will be the last time you rock your baby to sleep because suddenly they can do it on their own.

Or the last time they’ll ask you to kiss their boo-boo, need your help pouring milk on their cereal, or reaching a light switch. I guess it’s meant to keep you in the moment so you don’t miss anything. Right now while finishing up all the paperwork for our probate court appointment this coming week, I’m thinking about how I’ll never know when I’ve reached the last “first time” I’ll do something without Michael which was always previously done with him.

There have been plenty of firsts already, like the first time we went to Hong Kong Disneyland without him (extremely brief, and honestly just so we could get it over with), the first time the boys and I got on a plane without him (I picked up my phone to text him as they were closing the doors to say I’ll message him the second we land), and now the first time since being a teenager I filled out a name that wasn’t his for my emergency contact at the doctor’s office. All of them have been hard, even the objectively good things.

Will I one day reach the end of doing something by myself that we once did together? Considering the breathtakingly vast amount of things we did together all over the globe during the three incredible decades of life we shared, perhaps the better question is: Will it one day be possible to do something without noticing I’m doing it without Michael’s physical presence beside me? And honestly, from where I sit in my favorite green chair, coffee in hand, looking out over a balcony filled with new plants Michael never got to see, I really hope not. I imagine the shock of it all might diminish with time, but his absence can never erase all the love I hold for him in my heart, broken (though physically healthy) as it may be.

Will you please indulge me in a quick activity for your own good?

It’s coming up on autumn in the northern hemisphere which means back to school, which in turn often means filling out paperwork for a new classroom or grade. Whether or not you’re a parent or student yourself, now is a good time to check all the places where you may have someone listed as an emergency contact. The doctor’s office, human resources, your embassy or consulate if you live abroad, even your own phone’s emergency contact designation, and certainly your children’s phones… Take this opportunity to double check who you have listed and confirm the information is up to date with the correct phone number or email address. If you’re the caretakers for aging parents, make sure their medical contacts have you listed as well. Do it real quick and give yourself the gift of knowing if something terrible happens, this one tiny but important thing is already taken care of. Be like me and feel free to indulge in a small treat of your choosing after it’s done… my friend Melissa would definitely approve.

More soon.