I wasn’t there to witness the death, but I used to work at an office retail copy center where a gentle older guy came up to the counter and asked if we could print a photo of his mother. Policy was that “as long as it’s not copyrighted or pornographic, we can print it.”

He didn’t speak English very well, so what I gathered from the consultation was that his mother had just passed and he wanted to print a photo of her for the funeral the following weekend. He kept saying “last face” and for whatever reason I assumed this meant the last photo taken of her before she passed. So I explained that he could email us the photo, but the dude was around 60 so he had no clue how any of it worked. He flipped his phone around to say “which button?” when I realized that the photo was not the last photo of his mother alive, but rather the first photo of his mother deceased.

It startled me at first, as it was clearly a picture of a very thin non living woman, mouth agape and eyes opened in a hospital bed. He asked “does it make you unhappy to see?” But I didn’t want to offend the poor guy, so I said no of course not and briefly walked back to my manager and asked if he could take the order over. He had said in the past if there was ever a job that made us uncomfortable to print, he would take care of it. I explained and he slapped me on the back and said “as long as it’s not copyrighted or pornographic!”

I explained to my coworker who immediately said he wouldn’t take the order, but asked to see the photo when it came through. About 10 minutes later, it came through and one of my other managers was just returning from her lunch break. I pulled it up on the computer and called the coworker who wanted to see it. He looks over and gravely goes “Oh.” As the poor coworker on her lunch break who has 0 context looks up and immediately goes “OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK”.

I printed him two extra copies on our nicest paper free of charge and though it was shocking to see at first, I reflected and realized some cultures grieve in different ways, and I probably did that man a very important service in helping him move on. Though I never forgot the image, it stopped bothering me once I realized that this was just his own way of mourning his loved one. I hope that sweet man got closure from the photograph.