Working after loss
I’ve been thinking a lot about grief at work lately. There are so many of us working and grieving at the same time. The summer between high school and my first year at university, I worked at the YMCA. I started that job three weeks after my mom died. My mom died the day I graduated from high school; one week later I wrote my final high school exams. Two weeks later we had her funeral. The week after that, I started my summer job at the YMCA. I’m not sure how I survived it. I was in a complete and total fog - I could barely tell you my name but I was responsible for the care of small children at the YMCA summer camp program.
I loved that job. It was such a lifeline because it gave me a beacon of light, something to focus on. And I desperately needed the money to go to university after my dad turned his back on me for wanting to move out. Having that job was such a lifeline after my mom died. But it was also incredibly hard to get up every day and find the energy to work after crying so much at night. I guess being young helped me, I didn’t need much sleep, or at least I thought I didn’t.
No one at work knew that my mom had died. I finally told my supervisor about three weeks in when I was having trouble at the end of a long day. I was exhausted and feeling very low. She saw that I had had a difficult day and with simple empathy, and the offer to talk, I opened up. I cried so much that afternoon and she was so lovely and kind.
I will never forget her kindness. I wish in my long career, I’d had more managers like her. Unfortunately, she isn’t the norm. Thankfully, now that I am a leader in my organization, I have the opportunity to show empathy, kindness and care to my colleagues and staff. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. Every manager should have the necessary emotional intelligence to navigate the tough stuff at work - we don’t leave our lives, or our grief, at the door when we show up for a day’s work. Empathy and a kind word go a long way when workers need it most. Not when things are going well, but when everything is falling apart.
