Category Archives: Randomness

Follow up to Check’s in the Mail – Maybe

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Alternatively called, “People are Stupid.”

So I talked to the life insurance people…finally. A snapshot of the conversation:

ME: I didn’t receive the letter or the form I need to fill out for the rest of the policy payment.

PERSON: That doesn’t make sense.

ME: Well, I got the first check, but not the letter. Can you resend the letter?

PERSON: Why wouldn’t you have it? We sent it to you.

ME: Well, you know the USPS (uncomfortable laugh by me). I got the check, but not the letter. Can you just resend the letter and the form I need to fill out?

PERSON: Well, how did you get the check and not the letter?

ME: Um, I don’t know. Were they sent in the same envelope?

PERSON: Of course not. They were sent a week apart. But if you got one, why wouldn’t you get the other?

ME: Can you just resend the letter and the form?

PERSON: I guess so, but why don’t you have the letter and the form?

ME: I. DON’T. KNOW. CAN YOU JUST RESEND IT?

PERSON: There’s no reason to get upset. I just don’t understand.

ME: Look, I need the letter and the form. You have the letter and the form. I don’t know where the hell that envelope is and frankly, I don’t care. I just need you to resend.

PERSON: Fine. I’ll resend. This just doesn’t make sense. Can I confirm your address? (Repeats address correctly) Well, that’s where we sent it – you got the check, so why don’t you have the letter?

ME: Look, I don’t know. It’s lost. Can you put another copy in the mail and send it to the address you just read to me?

PERSON: Well, I don’t know what good that will do if you aren’t getting your mail.

ME: Then send by FedEx or UPS.

PERSON: Well, we really don’t do that…

ME: And that’s why I don’t have it…  

———————–

What the hell?! Bets on whether or not I get the letter and form?

Check’s in the Mail – Maybe

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I got home late last night, around 9:00. It was a late work night, followed by a few errands. (Sidenote: I’m traveling to NYC to meet with fashion editors next week for work – I’m a little stressed about what to wear, and of course, couldn’t find ANYTHING while shopping last night. Funny how you can never find what you want when you HAVE to find it.)

Came home, phone chat with a friend, went through the mail. There it was… an envelope from our life insurance company. I picked it up. I set it down. I picked it up. I set it down again. Then I opened it.

It’s weird, holding a check with that many numbers, knowing that the only reason you have it is because someone is dead. Then I realized that the amount wasn’t right. It wasn’t enough, not the amount of his policy.

I went to the safe, pulled the paperwork, but quickly realized that I don’t have any of his life insurance papers, only mine. I gave him all his papers when he picked up his stuff in November. I don’t have anything verifying that this wasn’t the right amount. Damn.

I went back to my notes, from when I originally called the life insurance company to make the claim. Sure enough, there’s a number written there. Yes, the check amount was wrong. Heart. Sinking. WTF?

I spent all morning talking to the company through which we have life insurance (which, it turns out is not the company who sends the checks – huh, probably should have known that). They have notes saying the second part of the claim is being investigated and requires doctor verification – and didn’t I read the letter that was sent at the end of last month?

What letter? I didn’t get a letter. The woman read it to me and faxed a copy, but the company didn’t have the forms that were referenced in the letter. And, of course, there’s no way to reach the OTHER company today because they’re moving offices. No phones, no email, nothing.

Sidenote: Really? There are jobs in which an office move means no one works? Where are their Blackberries or iPhones? Where are their wifi connections and work-from-home laptops? How do I get a job there? (Kidding, not sure I want a job at a company that obviously operates in the stone age…or do I, as I sit in the office at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday?)

So, I’ll wait. All weekend. To find out what the heck is going on. And how it can get resolved. In the meantime, I need to figure out what I’m doing with this check. Why haven’t I called a financial planner yet? Another thing for the to-do list.

Reflecting

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A few weeks ago, I was back on my alma mater’s campus. It was the second time I had been on campus since Mike died. The first time was for a college visit with my niece. Our time was booked with professor introductions and tours and admissions counselors, so there wasn’t anytime to think about things – other than telling stories about how much fun I had in college. Then, whoosh, we were off to the next campus.

This time was different, though. I was there for an alumni board meeting, and the weekend activities (like a Friday night dinner to celebrate the graduating seniors) were ones that Mike usually attended with me. It would be my first time solo.

Admittedly, I procrastinated. I stayed at work late. I shopped at the outlet mall on the way. I didn’t get to campus in time for Friday’s dinner. On purpose.

It was about 10:30 when I drove onto campus. It was dark and quiet. The air was chilly and brisk. I could see my breath a little with every exhale. I put my luggage in my room and went for a walk. There was somewhere I needed to visit.

I walked to the reflecting pond and sat down on one of the ice-cold metal benches surrounding the pond. I watched the fountain in the center and listened to the tinkling of water hit the pond and the hum of cars as they drove by. I pulled my coat close and buried my nose in my scarf.

It was here that Mike told me he loved me for the first time during my senior year.

The tears flowed free and fast, thinking about the last 17 years (holy cow, 17 years!). Standing here in 1995 when he and I went for a walk as friends and came back to the dorms something more – “there’s this girl…” he said, “and it’s you…” In 1996 when he graduated. In 2001, just before our wedding as we were passing through the area. In 2004, when I first joined the alumni board. In 2005, pregnant with Ethan. In 2007, introducing Ethan to the campus. In 2009, homecoming. In 2010, walking around campus as a family of four for the first time.

I realized in all the time that the campus – and this spot – have been part of my life, I’ve never sat at the “reflecting pond” and reflected, until that night.  I spent almost an hour out there, until my bottom was numb from the cold steel on which I was sitting and I couldn’t feel my nose.

I walked to the Grotto and lit a candle for Mike and for my dad. I said a prayer, then walked back to the dorm and got ready for bed. The next day would be a long one.

RANDOMNESS: Pointing Fingers and Greater Understanding

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There are times I let my mind to go a bad place in which I want to question people for not seeing what was happening with Mike, and for not stopping it.

Like his parents. I never had a good relationship with them. And neither did Mike. But that’s where he lived for the last five months of his life. (To the end, Mike never let me forget that he hated it there. He blamed me for “making” him stay with his parents. I told him to get a job and then he could live anywhere he wanted. That message was NEVER well-received.)

How could they have missed the signs of liver failure? From what I heard from the coroner’s office, he was pretty yellow.

How could they have overlooked the seriousness of his lack of muscle tone? From their own accounts, Mike was extremely weak in his last week. He couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the bathroom by himself – rooms that were right next to one another in their small house.

How could they have missed the severity of the flu-like symptoms, also self-reported by his parents?

His mom told me that she wanted to take him to the hospital, but that he didn’t want to go. She told me, “As a mom, you know that if you’re child doesn’t want to do something, you can’t force them?”

Excuse me? Isn’t that the JOB of a mom? To act in her child’s best interest, regardless of if they’re 4 years old or 38 years old? If things were that bad, why didn’t she call an ambulance?

I wonder how I will explain someday to Ethan and Lauren that these very obvious signs were grossly overlooked by two capable grown-ups who should have known better and should have taken action.

__________________________

When I start going down the finger-pointing-path, I realize that if I question others, I also have to examine my own actions.

I discovered the severity of Mike’s drinking when I was on maternity leave with Lauren. Until that time, I knew he drank – he always drank. Drinking wasn’t the issue – a beer after work, a martini or two on the weekends. When I look back, I really didn’t know what was happening in my own house.

Was it because I was working so much? I held a senior leadership position and put in very long hours, especially after Mike lost his job in December 2009 and before I was going on maternity leave. If I didn’t work 60+ hours a week, would I have seen the signs?

Why didn’t I question why we were getting so many calls from 800-numbers? I didn’t know until maternity leave that these calls on my caller ID were from creditors, most of whom hadn’t been paid in two, three, four months. Still, I looked at the ID and rarely questioned why . (The cordless phone was almost always dead or hidden from me, so I didn’t retrieve the messages.)

Why didn’t I push harder for why he was spending so much time in the basement? He said he was having trouble sleeping, so he wanted to sleep on the couch down there so he didn’t disturb me. He very rarely came upstairs to bed in the last few years, maybe once every three weeks or so. I asked him about it, but he held onto his sleep story.

I look back at the photos from these last few years – the few there are of him, since he was rarely with us – and the look in his eyes is distant, funny, out-of-it. You can tell by his eyes – the expression, the amount they’re open or closed, the lack of spark – that he’s drunk. Why didn’t I ask more questions?

Mike was very, very good at lying and hiding what was going on. He was also very clear on what he wanted: “I want to drink. I’m going to drink. You can’t tell me what to do.” I heard him say this at least 500 times in the last year of his life.

____________________________

I’ve learned a lot in the past few years: I can’t control others. I can’t change them. People who don’t want to change, aren’t going to change. There isn’t enough guilt, screaming, uber-niceness, threats, overly accommodating, or anger to make someone do something they don’t want to do.

And I’ve also learned to be less judgmental of others. When Ethan acts up because he’s having a rough day missing his dad, and the other moms and kids are looking at us critically, I realize that they don’t know what we’re going through – this little kid has no dad, and sometimes that confusion and anger and frustration are going to come out in inappropriate ways, and I might turn the other way, knowing that he’s having a tough time, and let him get away with behavior that I would normally not tolerate. In turn, I don’t realize what other moms are going through when they’re in similar situations.

Understanding has been one of the best things to come out of this.