Reference Question of the Week – 11/16/14
November 22nd, 2014 Brian Herzog
This question definitely took me by surprised and I don't think I did a great job of answering it.
A patron, who I would guess was in her sixties, walks up to the desk and says,
Do you have a book to tell you what to do in case of an emergency? I've been taking care of my mother but no one tells you what to do if something were to happen.
For whatever reason, my first thought was that "if something were to happen" was a euphemism for "my mother dying" - but then I thought, no, that can't be right.
We do have books on first aid and emergency preparedness, but just to be on the safe side I asked the patron what kind of information she was looking for. She said,
Like who are you supposed to call or what are you supposed to do? I mean other than a funeral home.
Oh, so we were talking about that.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect we didn't have any books that would tell her who to call when her elderly mother dies. Obviously the police would be a good choice, although I don't think I said that. I think ultimately it's the coroner that needs to be informed of a death, but I don't know if anyone can just call them directly. I'm also not sure why she ruled out a funeral home, and I'm sure if arrangements are made ahead of time, they'd know exactly what to do at every step of the way.
I was still thinking along the lines of some kind of resource to give her, but anything like this would probably be more of a pamphlet than a book. I don't think we have any "preparing for end of life" pamphlets like that, but it occurred to me that the senior center might. I mentioned the senior center and she kind of lit up, saying,
Oh, that's a perfect idea. I was going there next anyway to drop off knitting. My mother has a lot of projects started and yarn that I don't think she'll ever use again, so I was taking it there for other people to work on.
Okay. I gave her the name of the senior center's Director and explained how to find the office, and hopefully they'll have what she needs.
After the patron left I felt bad that I didn't have a better answer. I could have called the senior center, or maybe better yet the town nurse, to get an idea of the protocol for when someone dies. But hopefully the senior center staff will be able to give her the information she needs and help her through this time.
