Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Envelope

Today as I was sitting in my office trying not to concentrate on how hot and muggy the weather is, a woman dropped by unexpectedly. She was carrying with her a sealed envelope with my name on it. She came in, closed the door and said, "I need to tell you something and you can't laugh or make fun of me." Of course I fought back a large grin since we've had many conversations that end up with us sarcastically poking fun at each other. She had a nervous half-smile on her face and I knew she was serious.

I was pretty shocked to hear what she said next. She told me she would be having surgery next week (which I already knew) and then as she handed me the envelope she told me that the contents contained the music that she would like to have at her funeral should something go terribly wrong with a somewhat non-threatening surgery.

I just kind of sat there, speechless, trying to take in the weight of what was going on. Holding the envelope in my hand I resisted the temptation to make any jokes. For the next few minutes I just listened and tried to understand why this was happening.

Well it turns out that some people get very stressed about things like this and one of the ways they cope is to try to be "prepared" in case of a tragedy. It reminded me of when my roommate told me that his parents told him all about their will in case they died on the airplane on their way to vacation.

I put the envelope in my desk. I have no intension of ever opening it and I pray that next week will come and go and the dust will simply continue to gather.