The librarian claimed that he learned that they had all passed away after an elderly client in the Chicago area asked him to search obituaries for friends who had stopped corresponding with her.
‘I had an elderly patron call who didn’t have Internet and ask me to look up some obituaries because she hadn’t heard from her group of high school friends for a while,’ reference librarian Eddie Kristan of the Warren-Newport Public Library in Illinois tweeted on Friday.
He added, “I found them all, and she cried. I cried. I’m hoping I treated it delicately enough for her.
I spoke with her for a while and told her that I would print the tributes for her in the library or that I could mail them to her. She asked me to read her a few.
“What a s*** time to feel so alone,” someone said.
These tweets have since gained a lot of attention, receiving over 204,300 shares and almost 10,000 retweets.
People are now praising Kristan for his attempts to console the unnamed elderly woman; some have even suggested that they start a letter-writing drive for her.
@azure angel420 said, “You’re great for being what she needed.” “Loss is so horrible, and by the time you’re an elder, you go through so much of it.
I’m keeping both of you in my heart.
@Alanz55 Also mentioning that he was starting to lose some of his former friends as he grew older, he told Kristan, “Bless you for helping that lady find her answer.”
@HorrorCritic93, another user, also said that he was “so glad to hear that you were able to walk her through it and also to give her some honest sympathy.”
You handled everything perfectly, in my opinion, he wrote.
I’m truly thinking about the lady you assisted, Robin Whetstone added. I would send her a card if I knew her address. I wager that many of the commenters would.
If she comes in, you might give it to her from your library when I send it there.
You’re a badass, she continued. “We appreciate you being there with her.”
Kristan received accolades from other Twitter users for helping the elderly woman.
For his work at the Warren-Newport Public Library, which he characterized as a lifeline while he was a homeschooled kid in Gurnee, Illinois, Kristan was previously honoured by the Library Journal as a 2020 Mover and Shaker.
The library, he said in the Journal, “offered me literature and a safe place to read and view media,” and it also allowed him to read all seven of the Harry Potter books, which were forbidden in his family.
He strives to safeguard the security of the entire staff as well as the 1,800 or so patrons that frequent the library for all of their informational needs.
Instead of just turning down a hard-of-hearing person who wants to use a speakerphone, he advised, “send them to a private study room, the vending machine, or the lobby.”
I’m approaching them to help with their requirements, you say.
He then added, “I adore my job.” “It can be hectic, but these are my family,” said the speaker.
And because I’ve been able to contribute to the library’s constructive purpose rather than merely the security department’s reactive one. I would not want to perform any other task.