A maxim with which I identify is that we are all going through (or have gone through) something. Sometimes, ever so often, the wisdom of what you have already gone through can be a source of solace to someone in the midst of the same thing. And so it was a few weeks ago.
This particular day started out somewhat off-kilter. The department store unlocks the doors a few minutes before the 10am opening. Usually that is not a problem, however, this particular morning the doors were opened around 9:55 am and there was a customer who immediately materialized at my register – before I had a chance to open any of the three registers. Technically, we arrived at the register at the same time. Not good. I asked the customer if she would like to look around for a replacement while I opened at least one of the registers. She agreed and I was able to open one register in order to process the return. Before I had the opportunity to open the other two registers, yet another customer appeared with seemingly yet another return. However, this was not a return but what I thought would be a simple even exchange. This particular morning was not to be so simple.
The customer explained that she had purchased a comforter set with a coordinating pair of drapes months earlier. She had already set up the bed with the items from the comforter set but had never taken the time to put up the drapes. In the process of explaining why she was exchanging the drapes, she started crying. When she was a little more composed, she apologized for the crying and stated that her mother had died five months earlier (around the time she made the purchase and was changing the bedroom’s décor). My assumption is that her mother died before she was able to hang the drapes but after setting up the bed.
This changed the dynamic of the exchange. Instead of going through the motions of exchanging merchandise by rote, I stopped and took out the roll of brown bathroom paper towel that we kept under the register. I offered a piece of paper towel with the caveat that the hard paper could possibly make her situation worse by rubbing the skin from her eyes. I also explained that there was no need to apologize for crying as I had been there already and understood how seemingly mundane, unrelated moments could trigger tears of grief.
The minutes were spent discussing the cascading set of events that led to her mother dying in a situation contrary to the advance medical directive, or living will, that she had set forth. Because the living will was not followed, the customer had to make the hard decision to take her mother off life support when the doctor realized her condition was not going to improve. I would imagine this lay at the heart of the reason for the living will in the first place – to remove the burden of responsibility from a loved one for making the active decision to end their life. Yet, that is the situation in which the customer found herself. With the doctor’s prognosis stating she would not recover, the doctor gave her mother roughly 24 hours to live without life support. To add further despair to an already tragic situation, the decision day to end life support was the day before the customer’s own daughter’s birthday. In effect, she had to make the decision that would mean her mother’s death would be on her own daughter’s birthday. When she discussed the implication with her daughter, her daughter was okay with it. But she was not. For a moment, in theory I was okay too because I thought, “hey, it’s her birthday and she’s okay with it – not a problem.” However, after her explanation, I could see the dilemma more fully. Celebrating the birth of her daughter would always be marred by the death of her mother. With that, she cried a little more. And she again apologized for being so emotional after five months.
I then explained to her that my own mother had died years ago. I understood, to a certain degree, how she felt. I reassured her that five months was no time to be beyond the reaches of grief. I told her of how after a certain point, I would wake up with the simple goal of not crying that day. Countless days passed before I had that breakthrough day. I spoke of an incident nine years later, triggered by an off-hand comment made by a coworker regarding her own mother that found me silently weeping at work at 2am in the morning. At the front desk of a luxury hotel no less. I spoke of how, even now, 26 years later, there are moments where I feel the loss. Acutely.
Yet, I also tempered the conversation centered on shared grief with the recognition that there WAS a breakthrough day where I did not cry. Over time, the dynamic shifted from a daily life consumed by grief with moments of current events intervening to a daily life consumed by current events with moments of grief intervening. And how, over time, the moments of grief that intervened were less frequent and did not last as long. We both discussed the belief that the physical body is dead but the soul or spirit of the person lives on. I even told her about feeling an overwhelming sense of love and connectedness to all there is when I was in Luxembourg (a place that my mother had never been) and sensing/feeling that my mother was there with me. I compared the process to driving a manual transmission. When you release the pressure from the clutch (grief) a little and apply pressure to the accelerator (presence in current day), you move forward as the ratios change.
Eventually, we got back to the matter at hand. She found a replacement for the drapes. I gave her the merchandise and receipt once I completed the exchange. She thanked me for the help with the drapes and thanked me for the honest conversation. The change in her disposition was thank you enough.
Later that day, I was fired.