One cool morning my husband set out for a meeting in Washington, DC, about an hour from our home. It was a calm morning, like most mornings at our house.
His leaving and our daughter already at work left Helen and me alone in the house. Helen is my mother-in-law, as some of you know, and she is totally blind.
The morning started off as usual, as I said, until a phone call came to Helen's phone number, in her room. I hardly knew she was even on the phone and paid little attention when I heard her talking to someone.
Then, I heard her voice near the kitchen area where I was. "Are you upstairs?" she called out.
"Yes," I answered. "I'm right here. What is it?" I thought I detected some stress in her voice.
I met Helen at the kitchen door, where she told me that her youngest sister had just called to tell her that their older brother George had died. Even more surprising, he had died at least three weeks before. George was the only son of six children of the family. He had settled in Michigan, married, and raised a family there.
"What in the world?" I gasped, mental wheels turning. Helen is a strong lady, but this was a lot to take in. She had already had a few heart-related surgeries.
The day continued and the rest of the morning and into the afternoon Helen made and received phone calls. I tried to stay nearby. She updated me. She talked with her two living sisters, and they were all baffled as to why they had not learned of George's death until that day. They grieved together by phone. One sister's husband expressed sadness, I was told, that they had not even been able to send flowers.
I sensed that a lot of family-related emotions and memories arose from their own graves that day, and the fact of not knowing that George had been sick, much more that he had died, simmered hurtfully.
About mid-afternoon, a niece of Helen's, one of my husband's cousins, phoned. I took the call.
"I'll put Helen on right away," I said, heading for Helen's room. She had been there much of the day and had stayed in her nightgown and robe.
"No, that's all right. I need to tell you something." Then, before signing off a couple of minutes later, she commented, "Tell Aunt Helen we are as shocked about all of this as she is. I leave it to you to tell her the latest news."
As I hung up, I saw Helen again approaching me, coming down the hallway from her room. I touched her arm and spoke, so she would know I was right there.
"Who was that on the phone?" she asked.
I told her and then said, "Why don't you sit down?"
"No, what is it?" She wanted to know. Right now.
I held her arm and said, "Well, it's good news. George is not dead." Pause. "George is alive. It was all a big misunderstanding." I felt like someone saying, "Lazarus is no longer in the grave." Good news, but also shocking under the circumstances.
Her face mirrored my own feelings of relief, bafflement, and the residual pain of the incorrect news of George's death.
We sat down together in the family room and she talked and talked, still reliving memories of her growing up years and expressing again and again her relief.
We prayed again, as we had at the beginning, and then she returned to her room to phone her sisters again.
I felt like taking about 10 tranquilizers if I had had any. But I knew the best thing was to regroup. I prayed again, on my own. And there was lots to give thanks about: that George was alive, that none of the sisters had had a health crisis due to the first or second shock, and that I had been there and not out shopping or something when the first news came.
In the late afternoon, my husband appeared smiling at the front door, where I had rushed to meet him when I heard the car drive up. He looked the same as when he left that morning. And, in a way, nothing had changed. Yet, so much had!
"Guess what happened here today?" I asked. I told him, but it was hard for him to imagine. Everything was just as he had left it. Yet it wasn't, for his mom and me. Everything just seemed the same. He listened to the roller-coaster facts of the day, visited with his mom, and marveled at all of it. But the emotion of it was not the same for him.
It's that way, isn't it, when you see something no one else has seen, when you experience something outside others' experience? You can share it, but they would have to see and experience for themselves.
In this case, I wish all of us had spent the day in DC, away from the house phones!
Jane Bullard is an Internet writer and author (Not All Roads Lead Home).
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