Flowers

So there's this huge bunch of roses on my desk, in a pretty little glass vase. I haven't gotten flowers in a long time, let alone roses, so I set them up proudly on the reception shelf. Now all day everyone who walks by stops and sniffs them, then compliments them and asks me with a big smile if it's my birthday or anniversary.

It's not. I smile politely and say I helped out some folks, so they got me some flowers. Just that, and the next thing you know, the questions start.. "Wow, you must have really helped! So... uh... you know... what did you do??"

It's not that I am not proud of having helped this family out. And I'm grateful for the beautiful flowers. But, it's such a sad story, and it just wipes the smile right off people's faces. Not wanting to lie, though, and feeling like crap anyway (so I just want these well-meaning folks to go away and leave me alone) I end up telling an abridged version of the sad story.

Several years ago, a middle-aged man worked for here, well not HERE, but for American Airlines in general. He was on the ground crew at the airport. Anyway, he hasn't worked here since 2005. Estranged from his family, he kind of lived his own life and did his own thing.

Last October, he went camping in Utah. Somehow, some way, he went missing. They found his campsite, apparently, but no sign of him. His family, in Colorado, did what they could to locate him, but it's as if he just disappeared.

Until December 23. Two days before Christmas, another camper in the area stumbled upon a body. Based on the proximity to the original campsite of the missing former-AA employee, as well as other factors (presumable clothing and/or jewelry, I'm not sure of the details), the Sherriff's office was fairly certain this was "Tom," and contacted his family to get some more information. Like dental records.

Tom's family did not have this information, and the medical examiner's office in Utah could not release the body without positive medical confirmation of his identity. Their next option? Fingerprints. Tom was among the people who work closely with aircraft at a major post-9/11 airport, so surely the company would have his fingerprints!

This is where I come in. Not knowing who to call, the late Tom's sister called the director of Employee Services on December 26. That was quite possibly the SLOWEST day of the year for the people in the headquarters building of this company. Well, my direct boss is the director of HR - Finance. My other duty is to backfill for the secretary to the Managing Director of... you got it... HR - Delivery, which includes Employee Services. So I caught the call.

Over the next week, I sent the request to five or six different people, managers and directors and their assistants, because the problems was that when they pulled his records from archiving in the Tulsa warehouse, there were no fingerprints in it. Having been ground crew, he did have them, but the fear was that they were digitally archived, and those files are purged 6 months after the employee leaves the company.

Finally, through some miracle, we found a digital copy of Tom's fingerprints. I was able to get them scanned and sent to the medical examiner's office. They confirmed that the body they had was Tom's, providing closure for his family and a chance to lay him to rest properly.

The family sent me the flowers in appreciation of my work to get the prints to the right people. This was their very last option for identification, short of the drawn-out, expensive and emotionally draining process of DNA testing.

So I have beautiful flowers on my desk that make people smile. The story of how they got there is a little sad and depressing. I'm glad I could help this hurting family, whose holiday season turned unexpectedly bittersweet and wrenching. I think, though, that I'll take the flowers home today. They're pretty here on my desk... but it's just a reminder of the strange and sorrowful paths life can sometimes take.