Reassurance
I was riding shotgun in a hired van with my elder son. We’d just dropped off the contents of his London flat at his uncle’s house in Suffolk. It was the Saturday after 9/11.
My phone rang; it was Vivienne, my best friend’s wife, sounding very bothered. “I’m worried about Dinah. Nobody’s been able to contact her since last Monday. She’s working in New York now. Do you think she could have been caught up in the Twin Towers?”
Vivienne clearly wanted some reassurance, which I promptly gave her... but I feared the worst. But what should I have said?
- Category: True Stories Told As Fiction
2 comments add one below
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Christopher over 2 years ago
It's difficult in situations like that when you're pretty sure something awful has happened but someone is asking you for reassurance. I've been there. But I didn't sugarcoat it. Maybe I should have.
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
No, Christopher it’s me who shouldn’t have given false hope against my gut feel. As it happened, the news caused our friend (Mrs McBrevity) a serious relapse in her MS condition and she became more disabled as a direct result we believe. But life has to go on...
