The Whole Truth

Everybody in this story is dead now except for me, so maybe it is okay to tell this story.  I changed the names just to be safe.


Sara was 56 when she came to work in our office in 1984. She worked with us for 6 years. In the last few months she was diagnosed with Lupus and had to take a medical leave of absence. Sara died in May of 1990 at the age of 62. Since she had worked in our office for an extended period of time I felt that someone should represent the office and the institution in personally extending condolences to her husband, Larry. I appointed myself as the designee.

There was no memorial service or funeral for Sara. Larry decided to have a simple reception at their home for family and friends. At the appointed day and time I found my way to the house to say a few kind words to Larry about how much we enjoyed Sara’s presence in the office. I wasn’t sure how I would be received by Larry, but I was determined to do the right thing by showing up. I was confident that the normal standards of diplomacy and tact would be observed in this setting regardless of any hard feelings Larry may have held toward our office. I was wrong.

I arrived early in the appointed time range hoping to speak to Larry without much delay and have an excuse to go back to work as other guests arrived. It appeared I was the first guest to arrive other than family as Larry greeted me at the door. As I entered the empty living room I could hear the rattling of pans and dishes back in the kitchen and saw the dining table was being laid with snacks and punch for guests.

I had a few kind words I’d carefully thought-out to deliver to Larry and barely got a few of them out before he started a long harangue. In a cordial manner Larry let me know how much Sara had hated working in our office. That was the core of his message which could have been delivered in a single sentence, but he went on and on finding different ways to say the same thing over and over again. As I stood there diplomatically accepting the verbal torrent with my own growing irritation, I thought back to what Sara had told me at the office.

The truth is that Sara didn’t want to be working at all. Larry had an idea for a business and put their entire life savings into it when they were just a few years from retirement. He had risked everything they had and he had lost it all in the business venture. After losing their life savings he then had a heart attack and couldn’t work at all. If they were going to eat, Sara had to work. At this point in her life Sara was expecting to be traveling to visit her children and grandchildren, but instead had to work because of what her husband had done. She wasn’t angry with me, or the office, or the institution; she was angry with Larry for putting her in this position in the first place.

So during Larry’s tirade at the reception I was remembering all of this. Clearly Sara had gone home and vented about work, which is every employee’s right, but Larry had interpreted this as being a problem caused by the office and held himself blameless. Maybe Sara didn’t tell her husband the whole truth in order to keep peace at home. I briefly thought about telling him the whole truth, about the contrasting story she’d told me at work where Larry was the bad guy, but what would that accomplish?

It took only a moment to realize that this was the proverbial moment where I was supposed to turn the other cheek over and over again and allow Larry to verbally slap it. It wouldn’t do any good to point out to Larry that he was the root cause of Sara’s anger. If Larry knew it was his fault that Sara was so angry, he might not have a moment of mental peace for the rest of his life. The truth would only bring him grief, and I wouldn’t sleep well knowing I was the cause of his grief, and he didn’t need this grief on top of his wife’s death, so I let him continue to rant. I figured I could suffer some temporary unpleasantness knowing that in the long run I was allowing him some degree of peace. It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.

Eventually one of the grown children back in the kitchen overheard the ongoing tirade and came into the living room to save me from Larry. She ostensibly came out to be introduced to me, but in truth was on a mission of mercy, and that finally broke Larry’s singular stream of consciousness. A few minutes later other mourners arrived who Larry needed to greet, and after a reasonable length of time I found my way out the door without saying goodbye.


I like to tell myself that I did the right thing by NOT telling the whole truth that day.

Larry died two years later. I did not extend condolences to the family.