After Her Workmate's Funeral

Author's note: This is a story for the On The Job Challenge 2025.

Dedicated to those left behind.

from: Angeline H.

to: Edward R.

Dear Ed,

We just got back from your funeral. There were ten of us who went: two car-loads of your workmates. We got given the morning off to attend, but we're expected to work this afternoon.

I don't know if I can work much this afternoon. Not next to your empty chair and your messy desk.

But I thought I might write to you, if that's okay (um, I don't know how you're meant to respond to that – perhaps make my computer monitor flicker twice, or something). Some of the boys went down to the pub for an early lunch, but I don't want to join them. I know that you wouldn't have wanted to.

Your funeral was nice, really nice.

Fuck that, no. If I can't be honest with you now, when can I be?

It was horrible. It wasn't you, I hasten to add: you played your part magnificently. No awkward rolling out of the casket or anything, although if you'd suddenly sat up and shouted that it was all a mistake, I would have forgiven you.

Just... you shouldn't have died, and it's going to take me a while to accept it. It's hard to enjoy anything when you have a giant hole in your heart. So, it was awful to be there.

Your family were all there. I cried, of course, seeing them trying so hard to bear up, to show strength together. I didn't really get to talk to your parents. Martin kind of dominated in his big suit, giving his commiserations on behalf of the company. Fat twat that he is. He led the delegation to the pub just now. He'll probably get them all pissed and come back at 3: job well done.

And your... fiancé? Can I call her that? I don't want to say that she's your ex, even though I know that you broke it off with her a year ago. I remember what you told me about that. That when you started to get depressed, you realised that you weren't ever going to be good enough for her (your bullshit self-talk, not mine), and that was why you broke it off.

Anyway, she was there, of course. She still loves you deeply. I'm not sure that she will ever recover, to be honest. I wouldn't, in her position. I may not, from my position.

She would have been wonderful for you, you idiot.

Ed, we heard a lot about you this morning, but to tell you the truth I didn't learn much that was new. I already knew that you were smart (no, I said I would be honest: brilliant). I knew that you grew up a blue-eyed, blonde-haired boy. You were awkward, sensitive, but very well liked, except by the bully boys at school. They couldn't help noticing that the cute girls were attracted to you. I'm sure you suffered because of that but allow me to hope that there was enough recompense to make it worthwhile.

Your fiancé is pretty and intelligent, warm and lovely, even in her grief. I would let myself be jealous, except that that would be contemptible in the circumstances. I might have been your 'work wife', albeit with a huge crush on you, but I have no formal claim as a partner. You were kind to me and fun to be with. You made me laugh and you shared many secrets with me, including what made you angry, and what made you sad. But I didn't confess my feelings. And how could I have overcome your sense of not being good enough? I think that you would have turned me down gently, and explained that it wasn't me, it was you. And you would have been right about that, but also so, so wrong (see above.... intelligent, funny, caring, handsome blah blah blah).

I talked to your brother, while Martin was rabbiting on to your parents. He said what happened was a total shock. They had been relieved when you abandoned your studies and came to work with us in a 'real job'. I just couldn't tell him that you'd been putting on a front. That Churchill's little black dog was yapping relentlessly at your heels, unfazed by a simple career move.

I couldn't tell him that the stupidity of some of our colleagues and their casual cruelty had deepened your sense of an unhealable, broken world. That your hopes of being productive, being creative, and making the planet a better place had been unceremoniously dashed by the banality of working for the Man, and your crisis intensified.

I didn't tell him about our long talks. Of my urgings to change counsellors, to pointlessly change jobs again (even at the expense of my losing you), to change anything that would help. Or your response that you'd already done that, and also that you didn't want to move into a worse situation.

I could (and did) tell your brother about the guilt that I feel that I couldn't save you, and he (bless him) told me that they are all feeling the same. You were too clever for us all. If I had known that that was the day, last week, when you were going to do it, I would have...

Well, I don't know what I could have done, actually. I could have crash-tackled you to the ground, dragged you to sick-bay, demanded that you take some happy pills, go under 24/7 watch. I could have taken off my clothes, asked you to touch my breasts, asked you to make love to me. It wouldn't have worked, of course, because you were such a stubborn mullet, but I would have tried anything. I don't know what I could have done. But I won't forgive myself for not doing it, and I do know that I'm the only person here who you would have trusted to find the magic way through if there was one. So I can't shift the blame to somebody else.

It's funny, you know. How could my breasts, nice though they are (yes, I saw you looking), have helped you, when your fiancé's body and love for you couldn't? And if we're talking about maternal instincts – the urge to cherish you, to love you into happiness, to make everything right again – how could anybody eclipse your beautiful mother? She held herself so well this morning, so upright, gracious to everybody who spoke to her, but of course she was shattered. Her soul and body were in a million pieces, held together by magnets and animated by willpower.

How foolish of me to think that I could be anything special in your life. How naïve I was. Perhaps when you told me what you were running from, who you had pushed away, I allowed myself to believe that there was some deficiency in your family and/or fiancé? I would heroically show them all how it was done, and rescue you from the burning building. How pathetic. How Marvel and how unmarvelous.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ed, sorry I stopped writing for a bit. I hope you weren't hanging around watching the keystrokes, waiting for me to come back and finish. I took a break for a late lunch. I avoided the pub, ending up at the fast food joint around the corner, sitting alone and letting everything wash over me. The smell of fried chicken and the smile of a fake colonel. Unhappy 16-year olds being yelled at by their 18-year old boss, but greeting the customers with smiles regardless. It helped me remember that there are worse places to work than here. We share the guilt: but we weren't the problem. Dogs aren't allowed in the fried chicken place, however that little black one would have found a way.

The others didn't come back from the pub. Martin sent me a note to say that he took Adam home and told him to not work, and that he and the others would also be working from home. I guess that leaves me holding down the fort. Did he not think about that, and my feelings about doing that alone? But I can't criticise him about taking Adam home. I loathe the jerk as much as you did, but it was still him that found you in the storeroom. And I know that you wouldn't have meant it like that, but it gave him a hell of a jolt. They were subdued at the funeral, the whole lot of them, and they weren't just putting on a front.

In a strange way, I wish I'd found you first. Not because I want to be 'special' in the way that I was talking about before: I worked through that during lunch over my chicken, fries, and diet cola. But I could have hugged you one more time, kissed you on the cheek, helped ready your soul for the journey before everything kicked off. I think that I could have been strong enough to do at least that for you.

I'm almost certain that Martin is going to send me an email later today, asking me to clear your desk. He'll also, once he's thought about it, ask IT to reset your email password, and then he'll ask me to go through your emails and respond. Who else would he ask?

I'll do it, of course:

Dear XXXX, Edward is unfortunately no longer in corporeal form...

Dear XXXX, Ed has transcended us all, but I'm pleased to advise you that...

Or more likely:

Dear XXXX, you may have heard the tragic news about Ed. Please forgive the delayed response to your query, but I'm sure you will understand...

Whatever the wording, I'll find a way to acknowledge you somehow. I will not erase you, and I'll do my best to encourage the others as well. I'm going to put up a smiling, happy photo of you on my desk, from that time we went out bowling after work. If anybody's got anything to say to me, they can say it with you there, and they'll cope.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I did the picture already. I wasn't gone for too long: I went to the printing and framing shop around the corner from us. I did three extra copies, for your Mum & Dad, your brother, and your fiancé. I'll deliver them on the weekend. And I'm going to write down some stories about you. Stories that show those good things about you. They already know what you were, but they didn't get to see you at work. How you charmed (most of) us, how you helped customers solve problems, how you helped the bottom line of the shareholders, for which they will never thank you.

You died young, but you didn't waste your life. You know that, right? Nobody's perfect, but you always made things better than they were.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Martin's excelled himself. He managed to combine the desk clearing and going-through-your-emails requests into a single email, AND he also told me to take any time off that I need, and reminded me about the Employee Assistance Service. Well, if they couldn't help you, they're not going to help me, that's for sure. But perhaps I'll ask them to explain how I can double my workload and still take the time off that I need?

(As if I'm going to let anybody else go through your emails! I've changed your password already, to the name of that band we talked about last week.)

I need to go home soon tonight. But I wanted to share with you my other fried chicken revelation:

It's okay that I love you.

I'm not actually in a competition with your Mum and your fiancé, am I? They had prior claim, and their love and grief are real and more important. But I love you too, for my own reasons (see above, yadda yadda), and even if nothing was consummated and you would never have agreed to a relationship because of your own ridiculously low self-worth, I know that you felt something back towards me.

I'm saying I love you in the present tense, because I'm not ready for that change of state yet, and that's okay too. I'm not completely sure that the Employee Assistance Service would endorse it, but I'm not asking them. So I'm just putting this in my email, and I'm going to send it to you tonight, at your work address because I don't know your private email.

I'm going to leave your computer on tonight. Hopefully, if you do drop by, you'll find the sticky note with the password hint on the screen. Could I prevail on ghostly Edward to read my email first and ignore the boring work stuff, do you think? You were always so conscientious, but I think you could stretch a point. You don't have to respond to work emails when you're dead, but you can respond to me if you want to. I won't tell HR on you. Otherwise, I'll send myself a reply from your account in a few days:

Dear Angeline, thank you so much for writing to our dear Edward. He has asked you to reply to yourself on his behalf....

In the meantime, if you see that little black dog... I was going to say something cruel, but perhaps it needs a cuddle more than a kicking?

Thank you for reading (or not), Ed. Thank you for being a wonderful friend, workmate, and super-nice guy. And also a guy well worth mooning over. I love you to bits. And your mother is not the only one in pieces.

I can't believe I've lost you before I could say how I feel. I'm sorry I couldn't do better, but I hope you can forgive me.

Kisses and hugs, Ange.