PontifiKate

Sweet Sorrow

Sorry. Apparently, blogging has worked its way right out of my schedule. It’s nice to know it’s here when I need it though (…she said selfishly).

So in the course of my job on the annuity phone lines, I talk to the recently widowed, widowered, and orphaned. However, there’s a special department that handles death claims, so usually I don’t have extended conversations with the grieving.

But every now and then I handle a call in which their loss comes up and, having a bleeding heart, I try neither to dwell on it nor to rush past it. Most often I talk to women who make disclaimers about their many annuity questions, since they “never had to do this before (so-and-so) died.” My sympathies for any in that situation are one hundred-fold since my mind immediately returns to my grandmother in Kentucky who has been on her own for the first time in 58 years since my grandfather’s death in November.

But I sympathize every bit as much with men in that situation, and today I spoke with an older man who almost made me lose it. We had a minor connection early on in the call when he read back a phone number I’d just given him in Spanish, and I confirmed it with a, “si.” (Thank you, Sesame Street!) His Spanish was good, and he seemed like a neat man, even then. I digress. :o) So, we were talking about his options concerning his annuity as he wanted funds from it, etc., when it came up that his annuitant/beneficiary (sorry for the shop talk!), who was his wife, had died sometime last year, though he never reported it to us. When I brought up him needing to name a new beneficiary, he told me that he no longer had any living family. Whoa. He said that he met his wife when she was 12 and he 13. He said he told her then that he would marry her one day. He said they traveled a lot and so never had any children. He said he taught her how to fly a plane and ride a motorcycle. And then, after many happy years, he lost her. Why, he asked with a tremble in his voice, would God separate them like this? I said something about His reasons being mysterious, but obviously couldn’t actually get all theological/counselor on him. The call wrapped itself up pretty quickly after that. May God bring him comfort! (Too deep for customer service? Undoubtedly, but it’s abnormal, to say the least!)

Through handling these calls, I’ve had what could be considered a somewhat trite realization. Now that I’m confronted with it, I just can’t think of anything that better illustrates the tearing of Jesus’ heart for His bride than the separation of a couple that’s shared a lifetime as one. In the coming generation there will probably not be many stories like the one I heard today (which, granted, is lacking in the joys of children!). With couples marrying later and divorcing often, how many will be able to say that they honestly don’t know how to live without the other once they’ve gone? Can I allow this as a reminder that my Bridegroom sorely misses me and aches to be reunited with His Church? Oh, how that puts in perspective the sacrifice He made in leaving for a time and the fact that He wants nothing less than my ultimate good!

These are the things work provokes me to ponder. :o)

posted by Kate @ 10:25 PM