Grief... Loss...

ORR

So in October's update, I shared that I had lost a co-worker and friend.  I couldn't tell the story then.  I'm not sure I can tell it now, but I have to try... 

A couple of months before I left the company I'm consulting with now, back in February 2014, we hired a driver.  He was about my age (just a few months older than me), very nice guy.  We talked several times about many things - he loved to share stories, and I love both the listening and the telling of stories - in those first few months.  Through the two years in between, we've run into each other here and there, and exchanged pleasantries.  And I've always thought what a genuine, really nice guy.  Working back up there again (which I have to admit, feels a little like coming home to me), I've talked to him every day that I'm there.  Each week on my first day in, he'd come sit down across from me, and we'd exchange grandbaby pictures.  His first grandbaby is just a few months old, and mine are almost 2 and almost 5.  So we'd share pictures.  We became friends on Facebook, so we could share more pictures.  He was a prison guard for 18 years, so we talked about that quite a bit.  He's met some interesting characters, and those characters would be featured in his stories.  We laughed.  A lot.

October 21st wasn't much different.  I went into the office and started working on my To Do List.  I love lists almost as much as I love stories.  My friend left, heading out to location, then was back in very short order.  So short that we knew he hadn't made it to location.  He was mixing chemical in the yard out back.  The girl that I work with there - the one I'm training to do what I used to do - she and I went outside to smoke.  Nasty habit, I know, but I've been a smoker for more than 25 years.  One of these days I'll kick the habit.  But not today.  And not that day.  So we were outside smoking and chatting with our friend.  He had left to go to a location with the driver he had been training, but had been called back.  Some other chemicals were needed, and the delivery had to happen today.  So the drivers were going two different places.  We chatted, like the day was like any other day.  We didn't know yet that it wasn't.

In time, both drivers left and headed to their locations.  Our friend called to ask a question of the girl I am training, and she was frustrated.  She's in her twenties, very cute, petite, and outspoken.  She was frustrated, as we were trying to update withholding for employee paychecks with new insurance.  So we had to zero out all the "old" insurance withholding amounts, enter the new withholding accounts, and then go into each employee's deductions and enter the correct amount.  To make things a little more difficult, we didn't have the correct amount, so we had to go off of the quote, and hope that it wouldn't be too different from that.  I was in the process of entering those items, her watching over my shoulder so she could see how I was doing it, when she received a phone call from our friend.  He asked her a question, and she answered him.  For the life of me, I can't remember what the question was at this point.  Then he asked why she sounded frustrated.  In a joking manner, she said, "Because I can't figure this shit out.  I don't understand this stuff, but Kim does - because Kim's smart, and Kim knows everything - so she's having to do it."  I was laughing softly and shaking my head.  He sat quietly for a moment, then came back with, "Well, Kim knows that stuff very well, that's true.  But I'll bet you're better at drinking beer than she is, so there's that."  It was funny.  Not something that made me laugh until I cried funny, but funny.  And it just showed what a glass half-full kind of guy he was, and how he always tried to make everyone around him smile and feel just a little bit better.  Now, I'll admit, the tears fall when I think about those words.  I'm happy that's the last conversation they had, so she can remember him always that way.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  They ended the conversation.  The time - we would check later - was 11:48.  It might have been 11:52, because the timestamps on the phones are a few minutes off.  One of these days, I'll check the exact time they're off, because 11:48 is burned in my head.

At about noon, we went outside to smoke.  The girl I work with was inputting time from the drivers into the timekeeping system.  Sometimes they forget to clock in and out, so she always gets with them to get their time when it's payroll processing day.  She was entering the corrected time into the system when she got a call.  It was 12:06 - again, according to our timestamp on the phone.  She answered in the usual manner.  She looked flustered, stuttered a time or two, and then just said to the caller, "hang on" and handed the phone to me without a word.  Wondering what could have possibly put the look of panic in her eyes, I answered the phone.  I can't remember what he said, exactly.  I don't remember his name.  I'm about 99% sure he told me that he was the Dewitt County Fire Chief.  He said there had been an accident, and he needed the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) information about a chemical that was on one of our trucks.  The truck was on it's side, and one of the totes were spilling.  I think I'll remember those words forever.  They were working to contain it, but he needed any HazMat (Hazardous Material) information I had for him.  I asked for the location of the accident, so I could determine which driver, and narrow down the materials on the truck.  He told me that the accident was 8 miles from George West.  I looked at Lacy for confirmation and repeated George West.  She said, "That's (our friend)."  Hands shaking, she reached for her phone.  "What was on his truck?"  I asked her.  She said she didn't know.  The fire chief said that it was FA-something.  I told him I would need to get to my desk to look it up.  My co-worker was on the phone.

I went inside to my desk, and looked up the first FA MSDS I could find.  We had his BOL (Bill of Lading), but my mind was in response mode, not research mode.  It's a foaming agent, non-hazardous, non-placardable.  There could potentially be some eye and breathing irritation if you were cleaning it up without the proper PPE.  That's it.  It's not hazardous.  At this point, I finally asked the question that wouldn't quiet in my mind.  "The driver has the MSDS book, and should be able to give you the exact concentration of the chemical.  Can you tell me if our driver is OK?"  Later, I would ask myself why I didn't ask earlier, although my co-worker says I did.  The caller's response was that he was not on location.  My mind made the connection.  George West is nearly 2 hours away.  Dewitt County is where the office is located.  Why was a fire chief calling from 60+ miles away?  And why couldn't our driver have handed them the MSDS information?  Just then the fire chief said he had the exact MSDS sheet in front of him, thanked me for my help.  I asked again if he could give me any information on our driver.  He replied in the negative again.

As soon as I hung up, my co-worker came up to me.  "I can't get (him) on the phone."  I reassured her that I was sure he was fine.  If there's been an accident, and chemical is spilling, then he's talking with the fire department, sheriff, and who knows who all else.  Answering his phone is probably the last thing on his mind.  I'm sure he's ok.

She called DPS twice, trying to get information.  Over the course of about 20 minutes or so, we continued calling everyone we could think of.  She notified the Owner of the company, as well as one of our employees (the Owner's brother).  He was the closest to the accident scene at 40 minutes away.  She set the alarm on her phone for 40 minutes.  After so long with no word from him, no answers from the police, I finally started to have trouble concealing my worry.  I'm a bit of a worry-wart.  I recognize that about myself, and often refuse to worry over something, because the likelihood of it being the worst case scenario that pops into my very active imagination is so minute that I refuse to give worry time to set in.  I began trying to call hospitals, clinics.  Not knowing the area made that tough.  I called DPS again, and the dispatcher told me that she understood our concern, and she had relayed a message to the trooper on scene.  She assured me that he would contact me back just as soon as possible.  In the meantime, the Owner had called (our friend's) wife.  She was on her way.  That worried me, as I'd hoped to have some information for her prior to her leaving, but at the same time relieved me.  At least we'd be able to check on him now.

I can't remember the time that the call came in.  It wasn't the Owner.  It wasn't the brother (who arrived on scene first).  It wasn't his wife.  It was our VP of Operations.  He asked if we had heard anything.  And I told him yes, at first, thinking that he was asking if we'd heard about the accident.  It was the sad tone of his voice that alerted me.  I quickly corrected myself, and said "But we haven't received an update.  Do you have an update?  Is he OK?"  He hesitated.  It was just long enough that I remember steeling myself for what he was about to say.  "It's bad, Kim.  It's really bad."  I couldn't think of what else to say, so "OK." was my prompt for him to continue.  Just then my co-worker came running through the door.  She took one look at my face and sat hard in her chair.  His words are another that will be etched in my brain forever.  "It was a really bad accident."  He repeated.  "(Our friend) didn't make it."  I covered my mouth with my hands, I think I whispered "No."  He sat quietly while I assimilated the information.  I'm so thankful for that.  It's so strange to me, the way you can remember something with absolute clarity.  Then just a few seconds later is muddled and blank.  I remember discussing exact times, talking about when he called us last.  I remember telling him that we got the call at 12:06.  That the last time we talked to him was at 11:48.  Actually, at first, I couldn't tell him - noon?  Just after?  I couldn't remember.  Then I remembered we had checked it.  11:48.  Or 11:52.  That damn timestamp.  I remember telling him thank you for letting us know, and hanging up the phone.  I sat staring at her, my co-worker, my friend.  She was already starting to cry.

I cleared my throat.  "He said the accident was really bad.  He didn't make it."

The words were barely out of my mouth when she began to cry great, heaving sobs.  She'd known.  Somehow when my brain tried to do the "Everything is going to be OK" thing, hers had known already that everything was not ok.  I think I'd known it, too.  But my refusal to acknowledge it meant that maybe it wasn't true.  But it was.  Our friend - the man who had a permanent smile on his face - was gone.  In an instant.  I thought of his wife, driving down there to check on him, be with him.  She didn't know yet.  That bothered me on a level I can't explain, even now.  She was driving in her car.  We couldn't tell her yet, or their children could lose *both* of their parents.  She needed to make it there safely before she could be told. 

The rest of the day was spent in a blur.  I hate crying in front of people.  Like hate it enough that I will start to panic before the first tears fall.  But that day, I did.  Mostly I just sat, blank.  Wondering how this could happen.  It was an accident.  One vehicle.  A tire blew, they said.  A steer tire.  On a heavy duty truck like the Peterbilt, that was enough to end his life.  We still have not seen the official report.  But it's said that when the tire blew, his rim struck pavement hard.  If he turned the wheel to adjust for the force of a blowout (which would be human nature, to correct our course), then likely the momentum of the truck itself caused it to roll, and the chemicals in the back would follow that momentum.  We don't know how many times it rolled.  We do know the cab is nearly unrecognizable.  The truck wasn't on it's side.  It rolled.  Probably more than once.  And chemical was not leaking from a tote.  The totes came free of their straps once gravity failed, and the containers themselves spilled onto the roadway, were split open on the pavement.  Some of the steel cages looking like they were stomped on by a giant foot.  There is anger there that nobody told us what was really going on.  But what right do I have to be angry about that?  My mind insists that someone should have told us.  We were his employers.  And more importantly, we were his friends.    

And just like that - like extinguishing a flame of a candle - human life is snuffed out.  Our fragility is great.  And we forget that sometimes.  An ordinary day, an everyday occurrence.  At the wrong time, wrong place.  And a friend is gone.

The brother in all of this.  He and I have not always seen eye to eye.  Although we treated each other mostly with respect and kindness, there was no love lost.  I'd made mistakes, and he's condemned me for them.  He's made mistakes, and I'd done the same.  Yet on this - one of the worst of days - he was the first of our company, our group of friends, our little family - to arrive on scene.  And while the images that he was subjected to must have been horrific, he stayed there.  He sat with our employee, driver, friend, holding his hand, until his wife could arrive.  He was no longer in that body, he was free from this earth almost instantaneously we are given to understand.  But the brother sat and held his hand, until one of his family members could do the same.  He comforted his grieving widow as best he could, took her to the funeral home when the time came, and helped her arrange to get him back home.  We may not see eye to eye still, but everything has changed in that same blink of an eye.  So many times over the last 10 days, I've wanted to just go up and give him a hug.  I can't, or don't, because we don't have that kind of friendship.  But I want to.  Maybe I will.  And maybe I'll thank him for doing what was in his heart.  And maybe we'll mend some fences.  Or maybe that kindness will stay inside of me, forever changing the way I see him, without any outward sign that things are different.  I'm less inclined to allow that, but you never know.  Human nature is a funny thing.

Our friend will live on in our memories.  I'm honored to have known him.  And I'll miss him terribly.  I am incredibly sad for his widow, his family, the grandson that won't remember just how incredibly loved he was by his grandfather.  I'm sad and sorry for our little family at work.  Mostly, I'm just sad.  Loss is never easy.  Unexpected loss is somehow exponentially worse.