Against any common sense, the other day I called the home of a suddenly-absent very sweet little old man who'd been coming into my place of work every day for years. I got his machine, hung up, redialed and left a message.
Today a crying little old woman came in and brought me a present. She had come to thank me for the call. Her husband had passed away.
He had been feeling poorly last time I saw him. I had wanted to tell him I was thinking of him and was hoping he'd get to feeling better, if that was the reason he hadn't been around. That was the message I left on his machine. She was the only one left to hear it.
Posted by floridacracker at June 30, 2005 09:29 PMYou know, I doubt he needed the answering machine to get that message from you...
Posted by: ArklahomBoy at June 30, 2005 10:37 PMI used to like to give him a smooch on top of his scraggly ol' half-bald head when I'd be walking by where he was sitting. He was sweet and never told me to knock it off.
His wife was in distress and I would have rather not seen it.
Still, maybe she did like knowing that there were people outside their circle of family and friends who also were fond of her husband.
When my Dad passed away, I was amazed that people outside our immediate circle would call or drop by or send a card or letter... but they did, and it was a great comfort during those difficult days.
Posted by: Russ at June 30, 2005 11:16 PMShe pretty much staggered out of the building. It was raw and awful.
If you say I gave a dab of comfort, I'll have to take your word for it. She walked up and said, "Are you the nice lady who called?", but she was crying as she said it, and I didn't feel like a nice lady, but rather a bumbler who'd managed to give someone's unhappiness a good stir.
...but you knew better.
Posted by: ArklahomBoy at July 1, 2005 12:23 AMIt was dumb on my part. Kindly-meant, but dumb.
Posted by: Donnah at July 1, 2005 12:31 AM