ste_noni | (no subject)

I was all set to do a really easy interview just now. The couple was expecting a baby in February and so I was looking forward to admiring a cute new human in a baby stroller. When I opened the door to the waiting room, I saw the couple was alone, but it's not that unusual for people to leave their kids with someone else.

I started the interview and said something like, "This should be easy since you two have a child" and the woman responded, "we had." (Which is a totally normal way to respond in Spanish.) She then handed me her daughter's birth certificate and death certificate and pictures of her daughter in the NICU. She died after two month of some sort of congenital birth defect.

I almost immediately felt the tears well up behind my eyes. I felt like such an ass because I was making her cry and I really didn't want to add to her sadness. (As if I could, but you know what I mean.) Anyway, I told her that I was a mom, and that while I couldn't understand what she was going through, I could imagine and that I was very sorry. I'm not sure what else I could/should have said.

I guess I feel bad because I don't know this woman and her husband *at all* and I feel sort of like who am I to get all sad on her behalf. Maybe it's nice to have a bureaucrat be a sympathetic person - I hope so. Perhaps my reaction was stronger than I expected because of my last miscarriage.

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Your reaction was perfectly normal. I think a lot of us would have reacted the same way in that situation.

Thanks. It was just so sudden to find out like that.

I think the fact that a bureaucrat acknowledged her pain can only be a good thing.

Thank you.

I'm sure that a bureaucrat being sympathetic and acknowledging the pain was not a bad thing.

Thanks

Oof. I'm going to say it's nice to have a bureaucrat with a heart. That sounds like it was tough, emotionally, for everyone.

Thank you. Hopefully, I said the right thing, you know.

Oh, I'm so sorry. For them, their little girl, you. And I'm with everyone else: I don't think it can possibly be anything but good that a bureaucrat showed them a human face and shared in their grief, even for just a moment.

Thank you. I will always blame (or thank, really) motherhood for having made me a bit soft and empathetic.

Your reaction is so human, how can it be wrong?

My first year doing taxes for H&R was also the year K-Bug was born. I had a client, young military guy, whose wife and child had died during childbirth. I don't recall why now, but the story had been big in the local papers. When I saw his name, I remembered the story and my heart jumped in my throat. I hated having to ask questions about his wife and the child, but it was part of my job. That was over 17 years ago and it still makes my heart ache.

I hope I treated him and his grief with as much care as you obviously did in your situation.