The Other Side of Grief

By Stan Dryer

 

What was going on could have been an engineer joke. A minister, an army major and an engineer come to a widow’s house to tell her that her son has just died. The minister explains how her son is happily in heaven, the major explains how the son was a war hero, and then the engineer says….. ?

It was not a joke. The three of us were standing on the widow’s front steps at seven-fifteen in the morning of a warm April day. I was the engineer, and I had no idea what I was going to say to a woman who had just lost her second son.

The major pushed the doorbell button. We could hear the buzzer inside. No one came to the door.

“She must be at home,” I said, pointing at a car parked in the driveway.

The other two nodded their heads and we waited.

 

I was there because I was a newly promoted manager at the Megalo Corporation and the son who had died had been a Megalo employee at work with the military in Afghanistan.

For eight years before the phone call that Saturday morning, my wife and I had been living what I thought was a perfect life for a couple in their thirties. I had been promoted to a management position at the local Megalo Plant. Amelia had found her niche as a claims adjustor for a local insurance company. But the best part of our life was the free time we had together. Unencumbered by children, we could browse antique shops for furniture for our new house or take off for a concert in the next state at a moment’s notice.

The call had come at four a.m. that morning. I dragged myself out of sleep and picked up my phone on the bedside table. The caller was a man named Walter Davidson, who said he was from Megalo Human Relations. He apologized for the early call and explained I was the only manager who lived near Harperville that he could reach. He needed me to go over to that town and inform someone about a death.

 “Henry Paulson, a Megalo employee, was working for the military in Afghanistan,” Davidson continued. “There was a rocket attack at the supposedly safe base where he worked. We need to inform his mother, Gail Paulson, about his death before she sees it on the morning news. You won’t be alone. They’ll be a National Guard major with you plus a minister.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“It’s pretty straightforward. You extend Megalo’s condolences and tell her that the Corporation is ready to support her in any way we can, getting the body back to the States, help with funeral arrangements. Get her to understand we have her back. You got paper and a pen there?”

I wrote down the details including the names of my two companions who would be coming with me.

“The major will pick you up at six,” Davidson finished up. “Can you be ready by then?”

“Of course,” I said.

I shaved, washed up, put on my darkest suit and was waiting outside when the major drove up. It was late spring. The warm brightening sun and the smells of burgeoning life should have made me feel it was great to be alive. This morning it didn’t.

 

The minister said, “Let’s give it another try.” He pushed the doorbell again, and the buzzer rang again through the interior of the house, and we waited.

 

The major had been alone in the car. He was probably in his late fifties, very crisp and military in his dress uniform. I got in the front seat beside him and we shook hands.

 “I thought there was a minister coming,” I said.

“We pick him up in Harperville,” said the major. “I think he was Paulson’s minister before she stopped going to church.”

“I can see why the minister,” I said “but why are you along?”

 “Paulson was a veteran. Two tours in Afghanistan. Not a scratch. Then he goes back over there to this supposedly safe job and this happens.”

“Yourself?” I said. “Where did you serve?”

“Iraq.” From the clipped way he spoke, I figured he didn’t want me asking about details.

Neither of us said anything more for the next twenty minutes. I was busy trying to figure out what I would say. I had printed out the Megalo Compassionate Help phone number and the other details of what Megalo wanted to do to ease the pain. It wasn’t on official company letterhead, but it would have to do.

 

I shifted my feet on the porch floor. “Let me give it a try,” I said. I pushed the button for a rudely long time but we still got no response. Again we waited.

 

We had picked up the minister at the Harperville Church of Good Hope. The Church was a long single-story building, obviously on the new side. From the size of the parking lot, I figured it was a very successful church.

The minister looked to be in his forties. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and black trousers. When he got in the back, I reached over the seat and we shook hands. “What do you know about Gail?” I asked.

“Poor woman. She stopped going to our church when Carl, her older son, died. I’ve tried to call her several times since, but she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“How did Carl die?” I asked.

“Iraq. An IED.”

“`Fucking IED’s,” the major said.

The GPS system in the major’s car had led us directly to Gail Paulson’s house, an ordinary white ranch on a street lined with similar homes.

 

“I’ll try her phone,” said the major. He took the phone from his jacket pocket and punched in a number. He held the phone to his ear for a long minute then put the phone back in his pocket. “No answer,” he said. “No answering machine. Just rang forever.”

“It’s no use,” a woman’s voice called. “She won’t answer.” We looked over at the house next door. A woman was standing at an open window.

“Come over and wait for her here,” the woman said. “I can call her after eight. She knows my number and will answer.”

We walked across the adjacent lawns and she let us in the front door of her house. She was a woman probably pushing fifty. Despite her being dressed in tired slacks and a worn sweater with her hair in disarray, she seemed to radiate a kind of warm competence.

“I’m Betty,” she said.

We introduced ourselves.

“Is this about Henry?” Betty said.

“Yes,” the minister said.

“Has he died?”

“Yes.”
 “Oh that poor woman.” Betty looked as if she was about to cry, but her face tightened in control. “Ever since Carl died, Gail won’t answer the phone or the doorbell at night. Too afraid of bad news.”

“I guess we’re the bad news,” said the major.

“Well come on in,” Betty said.

We followed her into a living room dominated by a large screen television that was playing some network’s news.

“Let me get us some coffee,” Betty said.

“Let me help,” said the major. He followed Betty into the kitchen.

The minister and I sat on the couch and tried to avoid watching the troubles of the world laid out by a perky young woman announcer. I was afraid the reverend was going to ask me when I had last been to church, but he did not. Instead, he bent over, put his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands. He was praying.

I wasn’t sure what he was praying about. Was he asking God to comfort the woman who had lost her second son? Was he asking for guidance for what he should say to the woman?

A couple of minutes later, he raised his head and smiled over at me. His face was relaxed. “Just checking in with the Boss,” he said.

The television had switched to a natural disaster. A serious young man was talking to an elderly woman holding a frightened cat. “And what were your feelings when you learned you’d lost your home?” he said.

“You want me to turn that off?” I said to the minister.

“Yes.”

I found the remote and blanked the screen.

“We’re probably going to see a lot of anger,” the minister said, “mostly directed at me and God and the major.”

“Probably.” I said.

“In a way, anger is easier than when you get a blank stare and realize the person you’re talking to refuses to believe what you’ve said.”

“I can see that.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. In the background I could hear Betty and the major talking in the kitchen, just the shells of blurred words. Then I heard a man’s laughter followed by a woman’s. I looked over at the minister. He smiled at me. “Laughter,” he said.

“Definitely laughter,” I said.

The major appeared in the kitchen doorway. “How do you like your coffee?” he asked.

We both said, “Black.”

Betty and the major appeared, each with two coffee mugs. “My stubborn daughter acts that same way,” the major said to Betty as they came through the doorway.

Betty and the major gave us our coffee mugs and sat down in chairs opposite the couch.

 “Betty,” the minister said, “what do you do for a living?’

“I’m a Dental Assistant at Midway Dental.”

“You mean you clean people’s teeth?”

“No,” the major said, “she works with the dentist. Hands him his instruments. Makes molds of teeth for crowns. Like a nurse in the OR.”

“That’s exaggerating a bit,” Betty said. But she was smiling, amused.

“And do you know if Gail works? What does she do?” the minister said.

“She works at the Clairidge Plant,” Betty said. “She’s in charge of inventory control. I tell her she must be good at it as she is the most organized person I know.”

“Organized?” I said.

“Her house is super neat. Everything in its place and a place for everything. It started just after Carl died. I think it was her way of keeping away the grief. This is going to be tough on her.”

I waited for the minister to come out with some platitude about putting one’s trust in God, but he said, “She is going to need all her strength.”

Betty looked at her watch. “Gail should be up by now. I’ll give her a call.”

She got a phone out of her purse and punched in the call.

“Gail, it’s Betty.” … “There are three men here who need to talk to you.”… “Yes, it’s about Henry.”… “No. You have to talk to them.”… “No. But I’ll be over right after they leave.”

She put the phone back in her purse. “Go on over,” she said. “She’ll open the door. She’ll probably be angry, but you’re probably used to that.”

“I’ve never gotten used to the anger,” the minister said.

We filed out the door. As the major passed Betty, she handed him a slip of paper. “Here’s some information you might find useful,” she said.

The two of them stood there smiling at each. I had to push the major gently out the door.

This time when the major pressed the doorbell, the door opened slowly.

Gail stood there. She was a short woman with greying hair. She wore a smudged sweatshirt and jeans with thin-worn knees. Perhaps she had been planning to do a bit of gardening. Her face was hard, stiffened to await a blow.

“Hello Gail,” the minister said. “We have something we need to tell you. May we come in?”

Gail backed up and led the way into her living room. It was as Betty had said it would be. Everything was in its place and there was a place for everything. There were half a dozen pictures of two young men about the room, her sons.

The minister introduced the major and me. Then he said, “It grieves me to tell you that your son Henry died in a rocket attack in Afghanistan yesterday.”

The hard words hung in the air for a long silence.

I looked at Gail’s face. The hardness was still there. Then she turned on the minister. “And I suppose you’re here with some rotten story about a loving God who in his mercy lets young men get killed? How Henry is now happily in your heaven?”

“No,” said the minister.

“I suppose you want us all to get down on our knees and pray for God to show me the way to accepting that I’m now a mother with no sons. Well forget it. You can tell your God to take his infinite mercy and shove it.”

The minister closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “His mercy is always with us.”

Gail now turned on the major. “You bastard. You have the nerve to come here all dressed up in your stupid uniform. What’s your plan? Tell me how proud you are for my son losing his life in a useless war? How about not starting useless wars? How about that? Then maybe a lot of mothers would have sons, not just photographs and folded flags.”

I do not know what instinct drove me, but I walked over to Gail and put my arms around her. I had no idea what her reaction would be. For a moment, she put her hands on my chest to push me away, but suddenly her arms were around my back and her whole body went limp against me. She buried her head against my shoulder and began to cry, great racking sobs.

“Henry,” she said through her sobs. “Oh, Henry.”

I held her tight, inhaling the faint odor of shampoo from her hair. I said nothing.

After a long moments she said, “I know you’re not Henry, but you’re the closest thing to him there is around here. Just let me pretend.” Her voice was muffled in my suit jacket.

“Okay,” I said. In a couple of minutes her sobs subsided. She pushed away from me, took my hand and led me over to the living room couch. We sat down side by side. She did not let go of my hand.

I looked at the major. He spoke and said what he had to say. The body was being flown back from Afghanistan. He could arrange a military funeral. He had to stop talking a couple of times when his voice choked up. It was not very military or stiff upper lip. Gail might not have taken in all the details, but I think she got the message. The military was not forgetting her son. Her face lightened a little and she thanked the major.

I looked over at the minister. He smiled at Gail and said, “I hope you’ll come to our church again soon. There are many in the congregation who know and love you.”

Gail looked over at me. “Give it a try,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said.

“Now,” I said, “if I’m going to be Henry, I need to know a bit about him. Tell me about your son.”

“He was the obstinate one. Pig-headed. Always his way.”

We talked. Gail remembered the good and the bad. The major mentioned his own obstinate daughter. The minister asked for details. Whenever Gail’s voice started to choke up, I squeezed her hand. That seemed to help.

More and more it seemed Henry was there in the room, not the Henry who had died suddenly and violently, but the Henry who had grown up in this house and enjoyed, fought with and loved his parents.

We let her talk until weariness slowed her words. It was time for us to leave.

“Is there anyone we should contact, someone who could come and stay with you?” the minister said.

“My sister?” It was a question to herself.

“Where does she live?” the minister asked.

“No. I don’t want to listen to you never should have done that one more time.”

“Betty’s coming over as soon as we leave,” I said.

“Oh yes, Betty,” Gail said. “Betty, my rock.”

I got the information sheet I had printed out of my inner jacket pocket, along with a pen. I put the sheet on the coffee table and wrote my telephone number on it. I handed the paper to Gail and explained what it said. “And that’s my home phone number,” I added. “Call anytime. I can be here in thirty minutes.”

Gail looked at me and frowned. “You sure you want to? It isn’t your problem.”

“It isn’t a problem,” I said. “I’m there if you need me for anything.”

The minister was smiling at me as if he and God had known all along what I just said.

I hugged Gail hard and long. She went over to the minister, let him hold both her hands in his and thanked him. She shook hands with the major and thanked him for coming.

The major drove back to the Church of Good Hope.

Halfway there, the minister leaned over from the back seat and said to me, “Have you ever thought of taking up one of the helping professions?”

“You mean like being a minister?” I said.

“Ministry, social work, community outreach. You’ll know the one for you when you see it.”

“No,” I said. “I’m pretty set in my work at Megalo.”

“I think God thinks differently.”

“God?”

“Yes. He sent you here today to care for Gail. He knew you had the gift of seeing inside someone else’s head and knowing what they needed.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “I just felt she needed a hug. Nothing more.”

The minister looked at me hard. “God doesn’t make mistakes.He has picked you to do his work.”

 “Come on,” I said. “I was just the only manager who answered his phone in the middle of the night.”

“And the one who saw when a hug was needed.”

 “I’m not some kind of a saint.”

“Saints are there to set the example. God expects people like you and me to do the hard work.”

“I don’t think God told me to do anything.” I was getting annoyed with his persistence.

“Sorry,” the minister said, “too many beautiful things happened this morning for God not to be involved.”

I thought that one over. I knew he meant the hug, but I also saw he was thinking about what might have happened between the major and Betty. “Well, it worked out as best as could be expected,” I said.

“The other thing,” the minister said, “is what God will ask of you in the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you get home, you’ll find you’ve changed. It may not happen right away, but you’ll soon understand what he has in mind for you.”

I doubted that. What I wanted when I got home was some breakfast and a few hours of sleep.

We had reached the church. “Well thank you for your help,” I said as the minister got out of the car. “I hope Gail comes back to your church.”

“When you see her, just remind her we love her and are here for her.”

“I will,” I said.

The major didn’t say anything until we were back on the highway headed home. Then he said, “Why did you write your own phone number on the sheet you gave her? Does it say to do that in your Manager’s Manual?”

“I don’t think so. If the Manual mentions it, it probably says I shouldn’t do it.”

“Our padre friend believes God sent you to comfort Gail when neither he nor I could do it.”

I was getting very tired of being pictured as the right hand of God. “Major,” I said, “what was on that piece of paper Betty handed you?”

The major grinned over at me. “Her phone number.”

“Just a phone number? No little message as well?”

“Well, there were also four smiley emojis.”

 “That is definitely a message,” I said. It was good to know neither Betty nor the major had given up on life.

The major did not speak for several minutes. Then he said, “If you’re going to be Henry, you know you’re lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Henry had a very happy childhood. That doesn’t happen very often.”

“I know that,” I said.

Then I had a thought. “You know what is more important than Henry having had a happy childhood?” I said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s Gail having the memories of that childhood.”

The major didn’t say much more on the rest of the drive back. Perhaps he was working at remembering happy moments from his stubborn daughter’s childhood.

 

Amelia met me at the door when I came in the house. “How did it go?” she asked.

“As good as could be expected,” I said. “I think we were of some comfort.”

“You want some breakfast?”

“Yes, and then a long nap.”

I followed my wife into the kitchen where she set about cooking up some eggs.

“If I get a call from a woman called Gail, she’s the one whose son died,” I said.

“Why would she call?”

“I said if she needed me, I’d come visit her.”

“Isn’t that the minister’s job?”

“She may not ask him for help. She’s having an argument with God.”

“So why you?”

“I remind her of her son Henry, the one who was just killed.”

“You’re like a substitute son?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

Amelia frowned. “I don’t know if that’s incredibly beautiful or really strange.”

“Probably neither,” I said. “She needs to know people care, the more the better.”

Amelia came over to where I was sitting at the kitchen table, bent over and kissed my cheek. “Every time I think I have you figured out,” she said, “you come up with something like that.”

“One other thing,” I said.

“What?”

“I think we should have children.”

“Excuse me?” Amelia said, “I thought I was married to a man who did not want to have a child who would suffer living in a world gone mad.”

“It often isn’t the children who suffer, but their parents.”

 “I can see that. But why did watching that poor woman’s agony make you want to have kids?”

“I learned this today. You discover what is truly valuable when you see it taken away from someone else.”

“Move your chair back.”

“What?”

“Move it back.”

I pushed back my chair. Amelia dumped herself into my lap, put her arms around me and her head against my neck. She started to cry. “I never thought it would happen,” she gasped.

I didn’t have to ask. I just began remembering all the ways she had been telling me she wanted kids for the past how many years. And I hadn’t been listening.

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Stan Dryer is the pen name of an author who has been publishing short stories for sixty years. Recently, he has had a variety of short stories and humorous pieces published in a number of on-line magazines. He is an active member of Mystery Writers of America. See his work, mysterious, humorous or otherwise on his blog site: www.standryer.com.

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