She Came Into My Office


She came into my office to get her paycheck. With everything else going on after her mother’s death that was naturally not the first thing she thought about. But you’ve got to have money, so she had to come and get it eventually.

She said she had come to get her paycheck, and also that she needed a hug. So I stood up and gave her one and said I hoped she had been getting plenty of them lately. She said she had. It took a while before she let go.

It came as a bit of a surprise. I’m her boss, and I have to be tough on people now and then. I’ve had to do that with her before, in fact. But I guess I’m not so tough, really. I felt like my heart was kind of sagging inside, soft and limp.

What do you say to someone who last year lost her grandmother, whose dad died only a few months ago, who lost an infant grandchild right after that, who had to leave her husband after two decades of putting up with things nobody should have to put up with out of someone—and who just a couple of days ago went to her mother’s house, where she has been living after the breakup, and found her mother lying dead in the yard?

You try not to say too much. Mostly you just let her talk. And she had plenty of things to say. She talked about how close she and her mother had been. Since her dad’s death and her departure from her useless husband she and her mother had gotten to spend a couple of months of quality time together. A few days earlier she had taken a vacation day to go to a market with her mother. “I’m going to take you somewhere you’ve never been!” her mom had said. And she had had just enough time on Earth in which to do it.

Her mother had been through a lot too in her life. Not least of these trials had been the recent loss of her beloved second husband—the man who had become a real father to her daughter. “Well, that’s life!” she’d say. She said after her husband died that she just had to make a decision to go on and not let herself break down. And she had done just that.

Now her daughter has to do the same thing. She’s got her mother’s example right in front of her. She knows what Mom would say. Mom didn’t have much use for hanging back and moping. So she has decided that she won’t either. She too has made a decision to go on.

We talked on for a while. I had to make a similar decision last year when I found myself suddenly abandoned after a long effort to save a marriage. She said she didn’t know how I had handled everything I had had. I said I had just had to make that kind of a decision as well. Each of us, in our own circumstances, has had to trust in God to help us out. She prayed for me when I was in difficulties. I’ve been doing the same for her. A lot of people have.

We talked some about family and plans to go visit relatives. Her granddaughter, who is still quite young, is missing her great-grandmother. She asked the child if she wanted to go to the funeral. People there were going to be happy that she was in Heaven now, but they might also act very sad because they couldn’t see her any more. Would she be able to handle that?

The girl’s reply? “Well, that’s life!”

Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother—she’s not really gone after all, is she?

We don't have anyone handing out hugs over here.
They're lucky to have you.