So sorry for your loss: an open letter to VIA Rail Canada
VIA Rail President and CEO Mathieu Paquette
3 Place Ville Marie, Suite 500, Montreal, QC H3B 2C9
1 email @viarail.ca
Dear Mr. Paquette,
I am writing you as an inveterate train enthusiast. My father spent 30 years as a railway employee, and our family criss-crossed the country on several occasions thanks to his train pass. As a youth, I too worked for the Canadian National Railway, the precursor to VIA Rail.
My wife, Anne Schlenker, shared the family passion for train travel, and as seniors we travelled extensively by rail, accumulating Via Preference points as we rumbled hither and yon.
My wife was felled by brain cancer this past spring, and with her passing I found myself seeking your services for probate-linked business travel. A phone call to your offices in my home city of Ottawa confirmed that I would inherit Anne’s VIA preference points upon presenting myself at your offices. The telephone agent informed me that the transfer could only be completed in person, upon presentation of a death certificate, among other documentation.
Hence, I gathered the requisite papers and made my way to your Ottawa offices, whereupon the available VIA employee notified me, in a Kafkaesque twist, that such a transfer could only be completed on the phone and online.
This bureaucratic snarl is, however, not the main purpose of this correspondence.
I would like to ask you to instruct all employees dealing with the burdensome bureaucracy of bereavement to please express condolences before handing down decisions on behalf of your company.
Prefacing edicts by a simple “I’m sorry for your loss,” would seem elementary and de rigueur.
And if the agent were to feel more daring, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Gramps, Old Timer, Pops, or Hon” would help keep us on the rails.
Yours sincerely,
Robert McBryde
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
If you feel like reading more about Anne’s cancer journey, I’ve chronicled it in prose and poetry here:
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/news/
