Doctor trusted his gut and asked neighbors to check on his wife. It gave him the chance to say goodbye

There are moments when your mind might dismiss a thought, but your body doesn’t — something tells you to act, and although there’s no clear reason, you follow that signal. For one doctor, it was that unshakable feeling that prompted him to act quickly, giving him one final chance to say goodbye to his wife before it was too late. In a video reposted from three years ago by Dr. Serign Marong on his Instagram @dr.serendipity.md, Marong recounted in exact detail the sequence of events from 11 years ago, describing how a morning that began like any other ended up defining everything since.

"It is 9:14 AM, eight years ago exactly to the date in time, I received a text message from my wife asking me if I wanted a coffee," he said. He declined the offer, saying, "I had a coffee at the time, didn’t need it." At 9:27 AM, his wife tried to reach him again, this time by phone, leaving a voicemail while he was in an exam room with a patient. He didn't check the call until 20 minutes later. "She talked about not feeling good, having a little bit of chest pain, but her main concern at that time was just having help with the kids in the afternoon," he said, describing that nothing about the message seemed urgent.

He tried calling her back, assuming she might be busy, but when she didn’t answer, he waited and called again, with no response. On the third call, he said, "Something hit me. Can’t really explain it, but I got a feeling. It wasn’t a good feeling." Following that instinct, he reached out to a neighbor and asked them to check in on her. Moments later, the neighbor called back and said, "We’re calling 911, and you need to come home." "I got home to see her pale, having trouble with breathing, disoriented," he said, adding, "I tried to say 'I love you' as they load her up on the stretcher, take her [to the] ambulance. I don't know if she ever heard that."

That was the last time he ever saw her alive, as she went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and could not be resuscitated. Reflecting on what it means to revisit that day publicly, he says, "I share this stuff because... I was helped by hearing other people’s stories as well, so it’s therapeutic for me." He also acknowledged that "grief never necessarily goes away, but you just learn to live with it." His decision to share his grief publicly echoes what recent research has observed about digital mourning. A 2023 study analyzed how Filipinos use Facebook to express grief and preserve emotional connection after a loss, showing that posting memories, reflections, and tributes online helps individuals process their pain and receive community support.

His story broke the hearts of many, who filled the comments with love and support. @thickness_babiiee wrote, "Sounds to me like she probably waited for you to go. She didn’t wanna go without hearing your voice for the last time. Pretty sure she heard you!" @sass_cas33 commented, "The words you just said hit home to me, 'Grief never goes away, you just learn to live with it.' That’s so true." @widowednotalone simply said, "So sorry for your loss, we move forward with the love we had for them."

You can follow Dr. Serign Marong (@dr.serendipity.md) on Instagram for more content on health and wellness.