#also fuck me I'm glad I quit smoking because lung disease is a horrible wasting death

[copperbadge]

Because I’ve worked for my current org for a couple of years now and I’m nosy about the work my colleagues do, I knew that when we get calls from people who have recently lost a loved one, they often want someone to talk to as much as they want someone to help them with practical matters. Usually a colleague handles those calls because he runs the memorial program, but he’s on a fundraising trip, so I said I’d cover his desk, metaphorically, while he was away. 

So I had my first grieving-partner call today. 

He called to set up the memorial page for his wife, but we ended up chatting for about 20 minutes, or rather he spoke a lot and I mostly listened. I’m not the most empathetic person in the world, but when someone is that fresh from grief and talking to a stranger they don’t usually want much more than sympathetic silence in any case. 

He just wanted to tell me about his wife, about how interesting and accomplished she was and how she died, and that he was glad their children got to say goodbye. He kept apologizing for welling up when he spoke, and I think genuinely it was helpful for him to hear from me that it was fine and natural to cry, and that I’d be on the phone with him for as long as needed. They were married for sixty-one years and she died less than a week ago, so fuck, I’d cry too. I wouldn’t be able to make a phone call for the crying, probably. 

I took his info and let him know we’d track donations and send him updates, subtly made sure he had someone else there with him (”So are your kids still in town?”  “Yeah, they’re staying here with me.”) and eventually he talked himself out and we ended the call. 

When you work in a job where death is nearly always tangential, you develop a certain thickness of skin, but I’m glad I don’t normally work in the memorial program. I don’t know if I could take calls like that on a weekly basis. I’m fine, I’m not fucked up over it or anything -- it actually felt good to help someone out like that -- but it’s definitely a real pause in the day. 

Anyway, life is short and uncertain, so tell your loved ones you love them.