Three Phone Calls: Two Friends, One Grandparent

~ Sonya
100 words about being told on the phone that someone has died
photo by Pavan Trikutam 

The first call interrupts my watching Terminator with my siblings. My brother answers and hands me the phone. I leave the room. When I return, they can’t tell I’ve had the worst news. I’m already in denial.

The second call comes on a late January afternoon. It’s my best friend and I can tell something’s wrong by the way he says hello. This time, I can’t keep it to myself. My mother, brother and sister gather round and hold me.

The third call comes early on a weekday morning. It’s my mother; my grandfather has died. This time, I’m prepared.

13 thoughts on “Three Phone Calls: Two Friends, One Grandparent”

  2. No news is good news as the saying goes. We never know when that bad phone call telling us something has happened to a loved one will be. When I was little I could always tell from the tone in my Dad’s voice when some one had died or was going to. Great story Sonya. I swear I was following you but I went to check and I wasn’t so now I will get to read all your talented work 🙂

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  3. This is very well told. We don’t really know what the bad news is in the first two calls, until the third tips us off. I’m sorry it hear it’s a true story. My condolences.

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  4. I love how you you say ‘This time, I’m prepared’. It’s so true. It’s not that death becomes normal, but once people very close to you have died, it really sinks in – that’s it, we really do all die. When you’re young, death is still a surprise. As you get older and lose more people, it becomes less so – no less hurtful, but less of a shock.
    All the best, Sonya x

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    1. Thanks, Lynn.
      Also, after two people my age who died without warning, hearing that my grandfather, who was old and ill for some time, seemed a lot more appropriate. And we all knew it was coming. But hearing one of your friends died at the age of 18 is like, ‘what, that can’t be. We’re immortal.’

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      1. I’m so sorry, Sonya – that is tragic and very unfair. Young people dying young makes no sense, does it? As you say, at least when people are old, you feel they’ve lived. Though ‘old’ is changing as I myself age. My dad was only 63 when he died – terribly young, I thought.
        A very well written story x

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