Breaking Tragedy

Life is hard. Generally speaking. It seems like again and again the community where I work has been rocked by bad news of people dying. A couple of weeks after I had gotten here one of the 28 residents that lived at the house where I live died. She had been sick for a while and had actually not been living in the house for some time before I got there. The residents were hit hard. For more than two weeks after her death I was regularly asked if I was "au currant" or up to date on what had happened. The questions were asked again and again, "but why her?"

Last week one of the workers in my workshop died. He was in his late fifties. Everyone was informed at an all center meeting. One of the other monitors told me later that the worker had taken his own life, then, "but don't tell the workers because it will bother them."

Today during the morning break I was again brought up to date. One of the other supervisors' son of four years old had fallen and impacted his neck in such a way that he died over the weekend. The supervisor had the week before shown me a picture of her two sons. They were smiling and when you looked closely at the picture you saw that the older one had his finger up the nose of the younger one. Whenever she talked of her sons she would always be smiling. Another supervisor told me, "she is a good mother who lived for her two sons." She called in to say that she wasn't going to be at work this morning and didn't explain. A little while after a friend of hers called in and explained. Once again I was told "but don't tell the workers it will bother them." Before you tell the workers any hard news they need to be prepared.

A common statement in the workshop is "we all have problems here." I find that the monitors have to hide their problems and the gravity of others problems in an attempt to maintain a level of stability in the lives of the workers. Otherwise the work will stop and for a week or two we will be asked, "but why her?"