Unchartered Waters

    There are touchstones in my memory of these last few years - hearing the news from Keith, telling the children, the day the dealership closed... those are painful jabs.
When Keith told the kids, it was a heartfelt delivery.  In our culture we don't often see men express emotion.  It seems to kind of escape from their bodies. It is hard to witness this too, the hardest thing that I have seen him do.   I sat in my chair in the family room.  Keith tells the boys to come sit down.  It went down fast. There was no time to read a book on how best to break bad news to children.
    Our boys were so quiet.  I don't remember them asking questions which is good because we didn't have any answers.  So yes, the Titanic is sinking.  We're fairly sure we will not go down with the ship but we can't give you any details.  We are in unchartered waters.
    On tv, I've watched people, women, wailing in grief.  I always wonder what that would feel like... to push grief out.  Does it require effort or does it just roll out, uncontrollable? It makes sense to me - mind and body working together, but also it is foreign to me. My own personal observances of how people grieve is that they isolate, letting tears seep out quietly, keeping it private.
I don't know the right way, the best way... I just don't know.
    Keith did say that after the initial shock when they received the letter, a call was made to the district manager who was their local contact for years.  They had a friendly relationship, fellow spartan, all that.  They wanted to ask "What do we do? This can't be right... this can't be real."
    There was just an answering machine. That day he called back and immediately informed them that the call was a three-way call with the third party being a GM attorney.  All questions had to be directed to the attorney.  He, the district manager, could not comment on anything. The call was about 15 minutes long on speakerphone with Keith, his dad, uncle and brother. The attorney really didn't address their questions. He probably didn't know himself. He said a "wind down" packet would be coming in the mail to address questions and give details.  A website was being set up where questions could be emailed in.  21st century communications - breaking up by text, so to speak.
A dealership is franchised.  Our dealership owned the franchise rights to sell Cadillacs in the city of Detroit.  This was GM terminating our franchise agreement.
The attorney informed them that GM was allowing them to stay open as a Cadillac dealer until October 2010.  That was about 15 months away at the time. He slipped in that effective immediately, that day, they could not longer order any new cars ever again.  His tone was that they should be grateful that GM was giving them this time. Oh gee, thanks, GM.  Our guys were not confrontational because they didn't want to burn any bridges and were still in shock, thinking that this could be worked out.
    So how does the dealership remain open/viable for 15 months with no new product to sell? Huh? That was the beginning of a whirlwind of events and decisions and not knowing what would happen next.