Gloria
Claudia and Annette became really good friends ever since I brought Annette with me as a guest.to the dinner party that Claudia had hosted. That was a good thing, because Claudia and her husband Carlos had been on the rocks and finally decided to separate. Claudia was very secretive about personal issues so most of us didn’t know there was even a problem until the announcement.
Annette had transferred to a new position in the compliance department (mostly because that office was closer to her house) Claudia had come back to work at the bank, but this time in back room operations. A couple of times the three of us would go out to clubs or out for happy hour.
Both Jenn and Bill, and Eric and Lucinda had new babies to contend with so social activities with them became limited. I would still chat with friends online during the week at night, Rachel being one I talked to often. She was growing increasingly unhappy being a teller over at the branch she was at. I didn’t want to see her quit. I gave her words of encouragement to cheer her up.
The end of summer came around and in September tragedy struck. We all came to work like normal and Dick the Senior Vice President called us together and informed us that Gloria, a lady who worked with us in the back room, had collapsed that morning and an hour or so later informed she had died.
She was a heavy set woman who had some medical issues, but what happened was totally tragic. She was divorced from her husband, but he was ill himself. I believe he had cancer and had been living with it for years. He couldn’t work full time and couldn’t afford to live on his own. She was kind enough to let him live in her basement. He had been living in Gloria’s basement for as long as I’ve known her. I guess it is common when they have children together. Anyway, this particular morning, she went down to wake him up and found him dead. Upon this discovery, it cause her to suffer a heart attack. We were told that she was rushed to the hospital, but later found out that she died before the ambulance even got there.
They had two daughters and a son together and these kids, now in their late teens, early twenties, lost both their parents on the same day. We felt so bad for them and if the shock was bad for us, must’ve been ten times worse for them. One of the girls said they would be by to get her things and Alan, thinking it would be helpful, gathered up Gloria’s possessions into a box to save them from having to do it. When they did come, one of them commented “I know you didn’t care for her but it looks like you couldn’t move her out fast enough!”
Alan was crushed. Geraldine and Geri, who were very close to Gloria, were angry. Gloria’s children were always a bit ungrateful for what their mother did for them (She bought one of the children a house). The majority of us attended the funeral and the daughter did apologize to Alan. Geri kept in contact with the children who squandered their pretty sizable inheritance rather quickly. It was sad to hear that when Geraldine and Geri went to visit Gloria’s grave on the one year anniversary, the children hadn’t even purchased a headstone yet.