Wednesday, May 06, 2009

oh, the mail.

quite a while ago I took some maternity pictures for a coworker of mine. precious, precious, right?

and mothers of newborns or people who are emotional should probably just stop reading here. no, REALLY. I am not kidding. Not even a little. I might sound like I'm being sarcastic, but cross my heart I am not.

so.

consider yourself warned.

*************

if you're sure you wanna keep going...

so, the baby was born at the end of february, a little girl. I had never sent her the cd (though I sent her the actual pictures quite some time ago) and I finally managed to burn a disc and put them in the mail yesterday at 247 pm.

the mail gets whisked away at 300pm.

at 524pm yesterday we got an email saying something terrible and tragic and awful and sad in ways that I cannot describe happened yesterday--her little girl died. they don't know why or how, at least not yet. they went to wake her and she did not wake.

at 525pm I walked to the mailroom and yes, I had made it in before the pick-up, and that mail had been taken away.

long story short: I have it back now, it is not on the way to the mother. I think getting her maternity pictures on a cd so soon after, well, would be an awful, horrible reminder. but man oh man was getting them back the craziest spectacle ever. I think it took eight people.

-last night I was told they'd retrieved it out of the mail that hadn't been picked up yet, and it was on its way back to me.
-it did not show up with any of today's mail, which was scary, since it should've been here first thing.
-when I called the mailroom this evening the guy basically accused me of making the whole thing up. to his very slight credit, when I told him the mom is an employee of our company he at least made a little more effort.
-I was told no one knew about it, no one was there last night and the people I thought I talked to were all out of the office or on vacation.
-and ultimately, the mail was put in the drop box on the first floor instead of taken to the third floor. it was sitting there, and it was going to be taken from the first floor over to main campus, where it would have been sorted and then brought back over here and finally given to me. I would have gotten it by tomorrow afternoon or friday morning. but I was SO not going to handle that wait well.

the mail situation is trivial in comparison, of course. I would just hate to be a source of more pain for a family that is grieving. She was a little over two months old. It is just so sad, and my heart goes out to them.

7 comments:

brooke knight said...

Carrie:
Thanks for going through all the extra effort to get that CD back. In my limited experience, I think that means the world.

sincerely,
b

melissa said...

SIDs is an insidious, stealthy beast that strikes terror into the heart of all new parents. maybe this is a sign about how you should make that next donation. http://www.sids.org/

Anonymous said...

i'm sure you know this person better than i do, but they might want the pics eventually on CD to commemorate the daughter with them in addition to the hard copies they already have...just a thought (and i'm sure you did the right thing.) so sad.

care said...

@brooke-thank you.
@melissa-good point. why didn't I think of that?
@anon-I'll definitely give her the cd, I didn't discard it or anything. I just think that now is not the time. perhaps at some point I'll bring it to her, or ask her about it. thanks for making sure I did, though.

M. said...

WOW. That's such a sad story. You're a good person for doing what you did to get the pictures back. My heart goes out to them.

melissa said...

oh my gosh, man. wow. that's terrible.

but i think you did the right thing. and you went the extra mile to do it. good for you, carrie.

Jennifer said...

I like the donation suggestion. That could be a great and loving touch to share, especially when you finally pass along the CD.

My heart just breaks for that family!

 
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