I don't talk about my job here because I want to keep the damn thing and I don't want to run the risk of somone finding it and causing a stink. So I stay pretty general.
I'm STILL not going to be real specific about where I work (take THAT google...you bitches won't find me that way), but if you can't figure it out with what I'm about to write, I forbid you from ever reading my blog again, because you would have to be a total 'tard and I have a strict no 'tard rule here, Corky.
There are times when my job sucks ass.
I just finished talking to a 35 year old woman. I was taking an application for her four year-old son to receive benefits because she is disabled. I was telling her how much her son was going to get, when she asked me how much he would get when she died. Not if she died, but when she died.
She then burst into tears and cried, telling me about her cancer and the fact that she's terminal and that the doctor told her to start putting things in order because she was going to die soon. She moved here recently to be closer to the rest of her family before she died.
It just sucks that things can go so fucking badly for a person. I'd like to think that everyone will live until a ripe old age and then die peacefully in their sleep, but the world ain't like that.
My office is involved in some way with every person that dies in this county (again being purposefully vague about the location), whether it's just processing a death input or helping the surviving family get benefits.
You see this shit every day and eventually you get somewhat immune to what you see. At the end of the year, the stack of death notices we get from all of the funeral homes in the county is literally the size of a phone book. Hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper that designate one person that's no longer a walking and breathing entity.
We process inputs for babies that died being born and old men who die a month before hitting the century mark. We see mothers who die of cancer, teens dying in car wrecks, fathers who blow their brains out with their hunting guns, leaving their wives to tearfully scrub what's left of them off the floor of the garage.
My office is a microcosm of the tragedies of the world.
I've cried twice in the past two years that I've worked here; both times in the first six months of my employment.
The first happened the first time I did a death input for a baby. He was six months old. I didn't have a death certificate, just a notice from the funeral home, so I don't know how he died (as if it matters), but I pictured my own kids at that age. Their round little faces and pudgy arms and legs just beginning to learn to propel themselves across the room and I just became overwhelmed with sadness.
The second time I cried was the first time one of my clients died. Most of the time, I talk to a person once (or maybe a few times if I have to remind them to send stuff back) so I don't really get to know any of my clients. With this guy, I had spoken with him so many times that we built up a pretty nice working relationship. He was a Vietnam vet, who had retired from the service, and then he went into the Guard after that, working in conjunction with the Border Patrol and DEA on drug interdiction. He also had cancer, which they thought had been caused by exposure to Agent Orange when he was in Vietnam. He had just got to the point where chemo and radiation therapy were doing more harm than good. When he died, I had to go out and sit in my car and I just fucking cried so hard that I couldn't breath. I guess it just reminded me so much of when my Mom died, which was just two years before.
I'm at the point where nothing really overwhelms me anymore...sure, I empathize with them, even feel a little sadness, but I've see this so much that it really doesn't affect me anymore. I don't if I should feel glad about that or sad.
Tina Riso - 8/11/2006 2:25:23 PM
I cant believe that I just cried over your blog. I totally could not do what you do. I would be sobbing every day.
And as for 12 stepping the eating, Keith's comment was pretty funny. It sounds funny when its explained like that. But if you go to Overeaters Anonymous you can do just that (www.oa.org ). You know they say that the food addiction is much harder to break than the alcohol or smoking addiction because with food you still have to face your demon several times a day. I used to go years ago when I lived in California. If you ever want to meet celebrities, just go to OA meetings in Los Angeles!
Tina