One Thing Leads to Another

I heard a sad story today, in the unlikeliest place. It all started because my printer wouldn't work. It (the printer) made printing noises but pushed out blank sheets. I was trying to make hard copies of my new insurance policies so I could send them in to the agent. Since the agency is just a few miles away, I decided it would be easier to go in and sign the documents than to keep fighting with the printer. The agent said she would return from lunch at 1:30 and I could come in anytime after that. (I worked a half-day, although I discovered at what I thought was the end of my shift that I was scheduled to work a full day. I would have continued, but I had a 1:00 doctor's appointment. That was another link in the chain of events.)

My contact with the agent had been pleasant but limited. I felt that she had worked hard to find me the best deal, and we had exchanged good wishes by email. So when I went in, I assumed our engagement would be nice, brief and efficient. As it turned out, I was in her office for nearly forty-five minutes, only about ten of which were spent on my documents. We had gotten on the topic of kids -- I don't remember how it came up -- and we talked a little about our children. She mentioned her son and her daughter, and then she told me she had a third child who passed away in 2009. This is a topic that terrifies me, especially these days as I am in my over-worry phase after the death of my mother and my friend. She told me at first that her husband had asked her a few weeks after her daughter's death (he was the daughter's step-father) how long she was going to keep crying. Shortly after that conversation, she found out he was having an affair and ended the marriage. She was mad at the world -- at her husband, at her daughter, and at God.

I didn't ask her what had happened to her daughter, but she told me. Her daughter had been dealing with depression. She (the daughter) seemed to be doing better, so the mother returned from Oregon (where the family was from and the daughter was living) to Florida with the intention of going back west a few weeks later. Before she could get back, her daughter was dead. She had found a man on the internet who helped people commit suicide, and the two of them went to Mexico where the man bought poison, which the girl consumed. He videotaped her death and left her body in a motel room. He was arrested by Mexican police, who turned him over to American authorities. He was sentenced to three years in prison and served less than two.

What do you say when someone pours all of this out?  I'm not sure she wanted me to say anything, but only to listen. I wasn't in a hurry, so I did listen. Maybe talking about it helped her. From the way I've explained it, it probably sounds like she was being inappropriate in telling all of that to a client, but it didn't feel that way. And this kind of thing happens to me a lot, but it hasn't happened lately and has rarely been so intense. I don't quite know what to make of it all, but it all started with the malfunctioning printer.