I realize this is a “thought provoking” kind of post what with the intriguing title of this article, and I want to assure you that it is not my intention to challenge the prudes among us, but this is a true story and I thought I’d put it into words.
I had the difficult task of giving support to a good friend of mine who’s best friend had just crossed over to the other side. As a “young” mid thirties active woman, I had never really given any thoughts to that other side, our inevitable death, the place we all eventually go to…and so it was some trepidation that I went over to my friend’s house in order to help him out in his time of needs.
We live in a society when death is not something we really spend much time thinking about, particularly when we are so busy with life and even though we are confronted with images of death on the news or in the newspapers, we always seem to brush it off as something that doesn’t happen to us… yet anyway.
Apparently, or so do some of friends and family members older than me tell me, it’s when a person reaches his or her mid forties, that the realization of our own mortality suddenly hits us.
There are so many loose ends to deal with when a person we know has left this world and has put you in charge with things and if truth be told, my friend was at a loss, overwhelmed by grief and the enormity of the task ahead. How to you call distance family members of the departed, people that were never involved in that person’s life and you certainly don’t know that their relative had just passed away. How do you handle all of this.
And then of course there are the more mundane tasks such closing down accounts, paying left over bills etc… and this is something I am good at. Being on top of things…
And thus I asked my friend to jot down some of the numbers that needed to be called and this is really where the title of this article came from.
I don’t why, I have no idea if I miss dialed, or if my friend mis wrote one of the numbers he gave me, but when I went home that day, instead of calling a local service landscaping company, the number I dialed had a woman treating me to a rather sexy: welcome to cheap phone sex. But here’s the kick… I was so focused on the things I had to say that I didn’t really hear the lady and launched myself into an explanation as to why we needed to stop the company’s services and would she give the amount owed so that I might settle it on the spot.
The lady didn’t interrupt me as I was telling her that my friend’s best friend had just past away and when I was done she was silent for a moment and asked me how old this friend was. The asked in such a sweet friendly voice that I eventually broke down and spilled my sorrow over the telephone line, right inside the ear of a person I had never spoken to.
We spoke for a moment, she asked me if personally knew the person who had jst passed away and was the most helpful person I could ever have encountered on a day like this.
A few minutes later, have regained some of my composure I asked if she would kindly close the account for me and this lady, this sweet woman who had held my hand in this virtual world responded that she would if she could but I had just called a phone sex company.
It was the funniest thing that ever happened to me. It was also very moving and I am very grateful that it was she who picked up the phone and talked to me that day…