How to Write About Family Emergencies

Wednesday afternoon, my Grandfather passed away. I am very close with my family and the loss has put my life on hold. I had two exams on Thursday and a paper due today. When I inquired the Office of Student Affairs about an excused absence from these exams, they said that the death must be of an immediate family member. So this morning, I was stuck composing emails to my professors about my situation, asking them to work with me through this loss.

I know this is a depressing blog post, but when something like this happens, it becomes your entire world. My family is absolutely critical in my life, and a loss like this that threatens our foundation terrifies me. I put studying on hold last night so that I could spend time with my brother, the closest family I have up here. I have been up every night this week with a terrible cough that prevents me from sleeping more than a consecutive hour. It's not so hard to write about my situation in a blog post, but how can I communicate with my professors in the right way? How can I let them know that I still value their course? I struggled with this dilemma earlier today, trying to say just the right things in my emails.

We have learned in class that verb choice, sentence structure, and style are critical in writing. We have also discussed the difficulty of communicating via email because of the loss of emotion in typed words. I typed and retyped every sentence of my emails, worried that my professors would think I was using this family loss as a mere excuse to get out of taking their exam. I have minimal relationships with these professors. However, I still try to excel academically in these classes. My emails had to explain my situation and outline a plan for me to overcome it. I clicked "send" and now await responses from professors, uncertain that they will sympathize with me missing exams today. Luckily, these kinds of situations rarely occur, but unfortunately, when they do, coming up with the best response is very difficult.