Grief.....

In the next two weeks I have to lead two sessions on loss and #grief. The first is a virtual event for a team that has experienced a loss in service. The second is an in person session in NYC on men and grief.

Neither of these will be easy sessions and in preparation I dug around in the archive and came across this piece I wrote about grief early in the pandemic. I don't plan on referencing it in either of the upcoming sessions but thought I would share it here....

Grief and work

If you are someone’s colleague or boss

Sometime you’ll have to say “So sorry for your loss”

But someone dying is not like losing your keys

It involves a pain that no one sees

There’s a new world of emotion you can’t escape

Nasty, brutish and long like wounds that gape

Grief’s not a process from step one to five

It’s a mess, a chaos for the one left alive

Numbers won’t help you navigate this world that’s changed

Everything is new, it’s been rearranged

But everything is old as well

Everything has an old story to tell

I now live in a world of first and lasts

The only thing to look forward to’s the past

For when we love there’s so much we gain

But we lose too - we are never the same

Part of us is gone never to return

Leaving us to yearn and yearn

Not knowing where to turn

So much everywhere to unlearn

We cannot prepare, conquer or subdue

It’s a wild emotion that takes a hold of you

I can learn to drive, to fly a plane

But how do deal with a world that seems insane?

Where everything’s familiar but nothing’s the same?

I dig deep down, I try to breathe

Anything that will bring relief

But grief’s a vacuum where air used to be

You see I’m standing here but I’m no longer me

So, what then can fill this void?

Do I just keep going like a programmed android?

Seek out help from the followers of Freud

Or just hope to be struck by an asteroid?

Sure, the pain changes day to day

But I know it will never go away

So, recognize there’s little you can do

To help me to somehow pull through

Maybe just reach out your hand

Recognize nothing’s left that was planned

I’ll find comfort knowing you want to understand

This never ending no man’s land

Give me time, give me space

Maybe a hug, a warm embrace

And occasionally please touch base

I can’t turn it off for the workplace

I can hide it but it will show its face

When it does treat me with grace

So please bear this in mind

You can’t go wrong by being kind