Departing words

I certainly didn't plan to have two consecutive blog entries, spaced more than two months apart, focusing on morbid topics. But sometimes the dice just roll that way.

An 81-year-old man died on Thursday in Boston. He'd been in a car crash in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, the previous afternoon, was extricated by rescue crews using the Jaws of Life, and was then medflighted with massive injuries to a hospital over 50 miles away. But the efforts of medical staffers were futile, and he passed away between 1:00 and 2:00 AM.

No big deal, right? People die in accidents on a daily basis. It's the seemingly natural ebb and flow of modern life, and a common byproduct of risk. Traveling in vehicles at high velocities challenges a human body's limits when a collision occurs.

But this one was different. For his family, his friends, his former co-workers. And for me -- even though I'd never met the man or any of those closest to him.

You see, I started a new job a month and a half ago as a reporter for the local paper down here on the Cape. One of my "beats" is the town of Bourne, and when someone dies around here in such a tragic way it's big news for the small town press corps and its readers.

I got the call -- the "tip", if you will -- at about 3:30 PM from a guy in the Army Corps of Engineers who helps monitor and maintain the Cape Cod Canal. And just like that, I had another story to file. Since we publish on Friday, this was a deadline story.

A police sergeant filled me in on the details of the accident. He'd tried to turn his '99 Buick onto a two-lane road that serves as a bypass around downtown Buzzards Bay, but was sideswiped on the driver's side by a contractor's Ford Econoline van. The van wasn't speeding, but the limit on that stretch of road is 45 mph. No citations would be issued, and it was simply an unfortunate tragedy.

After notifying my editors, I started gathering some info on this man. The guy from the Corps had said the man's daughter was the tax collector in town. Folks at the town hall willingly gave me her home phone number and assured me that she would want others to know about him -- who he was, what he did for the town, and what he meant to the family.

So what do you say to a total stranger who's just lost her father without having had a chance to say goodbye? How could I be so damned insensitive as to just call her up and start ferreting details about her dad's life?

I didn't like this idea -- at all. There was something invasive about it, and I felt dirty. I envisioned myself as one of those detestable TV reporters who sticks a microphone in a grieving mother's face, asking coldly and bluntly "How do you feel about your child's death?"

The tension in my chest as I punched in the phone number on my keypad was palpable. After three rings that seemed to be spaced a half-hour apart, a woman answered.

"... ... ... Hello?"

Her voice was soft and quivering. And I started hating myself for what I was about to do. I stammered at first, but finally spit out the words as gently as I could.

"I... I'm looking for Kathy..." I said.

"Speaking..." she quietly replied. Even in that one word her voice had a mournful tone that was meshed with confusion -- as if she didn't recognize the caller, but figured it was someone wishing to offer condolences.

I gave her my name and told her which paper I was with, adding "I'm so sorry for your loss..."

"Thank you..." she said, even more softly this time.

"I know this must be a difficult time," I said, "but I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about him and his life."

At that, she burst into tears over the phone. I didn't realize that magnifying someone's grief was part of my job.

"He was such a wonderful man..." she told me, her voice choking. Kathy began filling my ear with rich details about her dad. I learned that he'd lived in town his entire life. When the Bourne Bridge over the canal had officially opened in 1933, he had been among the first to march across it -- playing a drum with the high school band at the age of 9.

Her father had been a police officer in town, then a service manager for a local car dealership, and a custodian for the town schools.

I learned about the wife and six other children he left behind when he passed away that morning. I also heard about an eight child, a son and ex-marine, whom he'd lost to Hodgkins Disease in 1967 at age 20.

After about ten minutes, Kathy said they were getting ready to head to the funeral home to make arrangements. I thanked her for her time and again offered my condolences as gently as I could. It didn't take me much longer than ten minutes to write the article on the accident.

A half-hour later when my editor asked me to write the gentleman's obituary. It seemed at first like some sort of on-the-job training ritual, but I soon learned that the funeral home wouldn't have their version prepared until the next morning: too late for us to publish it.

All the details Kathy had provided now had a place. As scant as they were, they soon came together to form a portrait of the man. But as I typed I realized that this was something Kathy and her family would read. They'd probably clip out several copies and save them in scrapbooks, along with that article I'd written. And right there at the top of it, under the big block letters blurting out this man's final fate, would be my name in a byline, preserved for generations of this man's descendants to see.

In the news business, her father was just a blip on the radar screen, just one of thousands of waves that travel across an ocean before collapsing lifelessly on the sandy shore. Three days later, I feel a little like I've lost a member of my own family. And now I wonder how long it takes a reporter to lose this feeling.

How many more of these stories will I have to write, and how many calls to bereaved loved ones will I have to make, before a person's death becomes just another ho-hum event to fill out a page at deadline?

I'm not looking forward to finding the answer.