One day, towards the end of the afternoon, I got a phone call from a woman who told me in a businesslike tone that her son had died unexpectedly. He had been an Idealis tenant in Wageningen. She didn’t have the keys to his room so she asked me if we could arrange a time to go there together. We made an appointment for the next day. After this call, I felt upset and stared into space for a while. I needed some time to take this in: something terrible had happened and we were talking about it as if it were an everyday event. The conversation kept coming back to me throughout the day and I rather dreaded the appointment.
I met the mother the next day, and she had brought her daughter, the deceased boy’s sister, with her. The mother smiled warmly and suggested that we went to the room.
The room looked as if the boy might walk in at any moment
With a heavy heart I went ahead of them to the lift and when we stood in front of the door I took out the keys and opened it with trembling hands. Inside the room, there were several family photos on the desk; there was some clothing scattered on the floor and the duvet was pulled back a bit. The room looked lived in, for all the world as if the boy might walk in at any moment. I look at the mother and daughter and saw how the sight of the room affected them.
They began to cry. I cried with them, inside. This was heart-breaking but I felt I must remain professional. I asked them if they’d like to spend some time in the room together without me. Sobbing, the mother said she would like it if I stayed, so I did. A bit later, we had a nice chat about the boy. And I expressed my sympathies and wished her the strength to face the difficult time ahead of her.