I used to get automatic emails of the local obituaries but somehow when I got this new laptop in June, I quit receiving them and haven't yet gotten around to re-subscribing. In September I was out of town roughly 3 weeks, altogether, and because I long ago stopped buying a local paper on a regular basis, I've been out of the loop. Tonight while writing another post which I've since saved in draft form for another day, I did an online search to check a fact and ended up on the obituary page of the local funeral home. There I tarried for 30 minutes, or so, catching up on people I hadn't realized had passed. There were a few surprises but I was aware of about half of them before tonight.
I'm sort of a connoisseur of obituaries. I love them. I love everything about them, even when I'm sorry to see some of the names, like tonight. And I don't think I'm alone. Back in the 90's, my daughter took a sociology class at the local community college along with the daughter of one of my co-workers in the ER. The instructor, a male in his 30's, shared with the class one day that he used to date a nurse who always listened intently to the obituary segment of the local morning news on the radio which he considered a bit strange. Upon hearing the story, my daughter and my co-worker's child turned, open-mouthed toward each other whispering, simultaneously, "My Mom does that!"
In a small town, there are certain people you see all the time, people you don't even know but who, because you're around them for sometimes your entire life, as in the case of the natives, or at least for 33 years, in the case of me, you feel a closeness to without even realizing it. Then one day, something reminds you of them and you say, "Hey, whatever happened to that great big, fat guy who used to sit on the bench in the city park and wave at the cars going by?" or, "Remember that gal who used to walk up and down the highway picking up cans? Whatever became of her, I don't see her anymore?". It's complicated because you don't even know their names.
Lately though, the obituaries have begun to include pictures and that helps a great deal. Although, oftentimes, for some reason the family picks a picture from 28 years ago that nobody would recognize and that certainly complicates matters. It's easy to miss one and never realize it. The internet helps but I managed to miss a bunch in September, I found out tonight.
So tonight I was browsing, reading in depth each obituary, one at a time. I read the obituary for the boss I had at my favorite nursing job in my entire life. She died while I was out of town and unable to attend the funeral. That one hurt. And it was unexpected. But I'd already seen it in the free paper somebody had lying around at work one day. On the second page of the funeral home website, after a few of our ER regulars who came as a shock when I heard about them last week, I saw a familiar face.
He was a jovial guy. Used to come in with his wife. And daughter. They were all three sort of regulars but only periodically. The daughter had her own set of psychoses and, okay, I suppose his wife was probably crazy, too. But he was just a pleasure to see coming and never had anything seriously wrong with him, just wanted to be checked out to make sure a twinge in the chest or a little swelling in his feet or a cough weren't anything serious. No big deal. I didn't even remember his name, until I saw it and his face on the same page together. But when I realized he'd died it made me feel really, really sad. It sort of surprised me, the way it made me feel, and I even cried real tears for a while. And I still feel sad.
We get our balls busted so much of the time by people who just make our lives at work a living hell, that when someone is polite and acts like an adult and even makes us smile once in a while, we appreciate it. And I know I'm greatly callused, maybe even pathologically but I still love people, even though I'd probably be better off if I didn't, and in a quirky, philosophical way, I loved that guy. And now he's gone and never coming back.
You don't realize how many people you touch. I think Bud would be surprised to have seen me cry when I saw his picture online tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment