The call
I remember the first time I had to make the call to the family of a dead person.
I was an editor at a campus newspaper, and a student had been found dead in her dorm room the night before. I had talked to some of her friends at the residence building, got her name and a few biographical details for a web story.
The next day, I tried to track down her family.
She came from a small town in Northern Ontario, and I looked up her last name in the directory. Twelve listings. I set out my note pad, wrote down a few questions and practised what I would say five or six times. Then I started dialing.
At the first number I tried, no one was home. At the second, a man answered and said he wasn't a relative. On my third try, a teen girl picked up.
I introduced myself, told her the paper I was with and then asked if she was related to the girl who had died.
"Yes," said the voice on the other end of the phone, almost breaking. There were butterflies in my stomach, my heart was pounding. Before I could say anything more, someone else picked up the phone at the other end, an older-sounding woman.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"I'm Adrian, I'm a reporter with the student paper. I'm so sorry for your loss," I said. "Do you have a couple of minutes?"
"We don't have any comment, but we appreciate the call," she said. She sounded confident, put together.
"Okay," I said. "I'm just hoping to find out something about her . . . how will you remember her?
She repeated that she was declining to comment. I thanked her, and she hung up. I didn't realize until then that I was holding my breath.
I've made that phone call dozens of times since then. I've talked to the families and friends of people who've been murdered, crashed their cars or choked to death in fires. Sometimes, I call 10 or 20 people without ever finding the one I'm looking for. Other times, I know just one phone call will determine if I have a story or not.
I was mentoring Joana the other day in making the call, and writing up an obituary for a Canadian man killed in Haiti. She seemed to think that calling these people was no big deal for me, that I'm jaded. My friend Raveena certainly is -- she spent several days in the last couple of weeks covering the deaths in Haiti and a few other trauma stories closer to home. "That must've been a tough interview," I commiserated with her when she told me about talking to the daughter of a man who drowned when his snow mobile crashed through a lake, as she tried to figure out how to explain it to the man's grandson. Raveena srhugged it off. "It's just annoying trying to find the people," she said.
On occasion, I fool myself into thinking that it's that easy for me: there are times I pick up the phone and punch the number in before I have a chance to think about it. But most of the time, I have to psych myself up before I make the call, just like the first time. The best interviews, sometimes, are the hardest ones to do.
I was an editor at a campus newspaper, and a student had been found dead in her dorm room the night before. I had talked to some of her friends at the residence building, got her name and a few biographical details for a web story.
The next day, I tried to track down her family.
She came from a small town in Northern Ontario, and I looked up her last name in the directory. Twelve listings. I set out my note pad, wrote down a few questions and practised what I would say five or six times. Then I started dialing.
At the first number I tried, no one was home. At the second, a man answered and said he wasn't a relative. On my third try, a teen girl picked up.
I introduced myself, told her the paper I was with and then asked if she was related to the girl who had died.
"Yes," said the voice on the other end of the phone, almost breaking. There were butterflies in my stomach, my heart was pounding. Before I could say anything more, someone else picked up the phone at the other end, an older-sounding woman.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"I'm Adrian, I'm a reporter with the student paper. I'm so sorry for your loss," I said. "Do you have a couple of minutes?"
"We don't have any comment, but we appreciate the call," she said. She sounded confident, put together.
"Okay," I said. "I'm just hoping to find out something about her . . . how will you remember her?
She repeated that she was declining to comment. I thanked her, and she hung up. I didn't realize until then that I was holding my breath.
I've made that phone call dozens of times since then. I've talked to the families and friends of people who've been murdered, crashed their cars or choked to death in fires. Sometimes, I call 10 or 20 people without ever finding the one I'm looking for. Other times, I know just one phone call will determine if I have a story or not.
I was mentoring Joana the other day in making the call, and writing up an obituary for a Canadian man killed in Haiti. She seemed to think that calling these people was no big deal for me, that I'm jaded. My friend Raveena certainly is -- she spent several days in the last couple of weeks covering the deaths in Haiti and a few other trauma stories closer to home. "That must've been a tough interview," I commiserated with her when she told me about talking to the daughter of a man who drowned when his snow mobile crashed through a lake, as she tried to figure out how to explain it to the man's grandson. Raveena srhugged it off. "It's just annoying trying to find the people," she said.
On occasion, I fool myself into thinking that it's that easy for me: there are times I pick up the phone and punch the number in before I have a chance to think about it. But most of the time, I have to psych myself up before I make the call, just like the first time. The best interviews, sometimes, are the hardest ones to do.