When clients die.

[Carman Gentile]

My colleagues,

    On rare occasions when I call a client to schedule a tuning I learn 
from a family member that the client has passed away since the last 
appointment.  Once the phone was answered by the daughter of the piano 
owner who said her mother had just died two days earlier.  (I expressed my 
condolences.)  Since then I've made a habit of reviewing the local 
obituary, but it is impossible to always know if a piano client is recently 
deceased.

   Is there an established protocol that RPT's follow when a client 
dies?  Is it customary to send a card?  How do you minimize the obvious 
awkwardness of the situation while on the phone?

Carman Gentile RPT
Redwood Chapter