Rossi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deathpixie) wrote2005-08-13 06:19 pm
deathpixie) wrote2005-08-13 06:19 pm
Entry tags:
Grief
One definite, two probables, the last two both young men who walked unaccountably into traffic. We had the families from all of them come in for identification today. Actually, it was a big day all 'round for IDs - I did two, Sarah did three, and of them all, only the first was in any way easy.
Larissa, the girl that was going to be replacing me after I leave, told the boss this past week she couldn't work the back office. She couldn't handle the identifications, you see. It's not the bodies, the smell, the decomposition or the injuries, it's the families who come in, absolutely shattered. It's the feeling of helplessness as you struggle to avoid meaningless platitudes and maintain your professional distance, get the ID done and the information they need imparted and the family away. It's the wanting to do right by them, and not being sure if you're just making things worse.
I know how she feels.
Apparently they're going to get some training for us via the grief counsellors. Teach people how to deal with grief, how to by sympathetic without losing that distance. It's a tad late for me, since I'll be in the front office again, but it's a good thing. They recommended in the leaflet I got at induction that talking about it is good, but I don't want to traumatise my friends with these stories, or horrify them with the black humour we employ in order to maintain our sanity. Only... I had to talk to a father today, who'd lost his 23 year old son for no good reason. I went into that ID room to check he was ready to be viewed, and there he was, bruised and battered and so obviously dead. I watched one of his brothers refuse to go in, and the one who did come back out after a minute, to curl into a ball and weep. I saw this father, trying so hard to be strong for the rest of them, when you could see his pain and confusion and grief, just below the surface. And I tried, but there wasn't much I could do, no answers I could give, just protocols and a couple of leaflets and our 24 hour number for later when the shock wears off and he wants to know more.
I enjoy my job. Coroner's is where I've always wanted to work, ever since I started the job. But there was one important component to the equation that I forgot; the families. I love my job, but I'm glad it's over in October. It's just so... Grief is the unspoken emotion, the one we prefer to not have to witness since it's so raw and powerful and there's nothing so naked as a person grieving. I feel like a peeping tom, a voyuer, especially since there's a part of my mind that's sitting there, waiting for them to get it over already so I can get on with the rest of my work. Or recording it, for future reference. And I hate that, even at the same time I acknowledge that it's what's keeping me from breaking down with them.
I see so much, in a day's work. And sometimes, it needs to be let out. This is one of those times.
And I think tomorrow I'll text Phil, see if he's up for the band at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, and I'm going to have an evening of not thinking about death, and grief and a father who had to identify his 23 year old son because for some unknown reason he walked into traffic.
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And if you weren't recording these things for later, you wouldn't be a writer. But you do. And you are.
Every time I try and end this comment, it comes out as a platitude. So I'll just say this:
Don't ever forget your towel.
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I don't know how you do what you do, but I am damn glad that there is a person like you doing it.
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*hugs*