Where Are You Transitioning To?

"Where are you transitioning to?"

It seems like a simple question. People ask it when you leave an organization you've been at for a long time, and they expect a simple answer back.

I paused before answering. And then I noticed something: I'd been giving a short answer to some people and a much longer answer to others.

To the people who knew me personally, I said, "I'm going to be the Founding Executive Director of Grieve Leave, an organization that provides grief support and education to individuals and to employers." They'd nod. Makes sense. That's so perfect. Well, that's a fit. 

To the people who knew me only professionally, I could see the confusion before they said a word. I watched more than one person try to arrange their face into something supportive. Grief? But you work with young people and families. Education. Housing. Employment. Why grief?

In that confusion, the longer answer was born.

Between June 2020 and June 2021, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer and recovered. I began the journey of solo parenting. I lost my uncle to COVID. And then, to close out the worst year of my life, my mother died.

All of it with a pandemic in the background. All while social distancing. All while parenting. All while working.

I was fortunate. I had an employer who understood that there's no such thing as work-life balance. There's just life, and we're all trying to live it while we work. Through the hospital visits and the funerals and everything else life was throwing my way, I was extended grace and allowed to adjust as I needed to. I know that's not what everyone gets. I got it, and it mattered.

What grace doesn't do is grieve for you.

In the months that followed, I started looking at the compounded grief I'd been carrying. I had never actually grieved any of it. But I was absolutely experiencing it in my body. After my first panic attack, I decided to seek support.

I found a grief tending circle that met twice a month on Thursdays. Apparently I wasn’t going to grieve unless it was on my calendar. The people in that space were grieving all kinds of losses. Someone had buried her father. Someone had lost a job. Someone was caring for a parent. Someone was grieving a body that no longer worked the way it used to. Not one of us was there for the same reason, and it didn't matter.

That circle taught me two things that reshaped how I think about work and community. The first is that grief isn't reserved for death. It shows up wherever something ends. The second is simpler. Grief carried alone gets heavier. Grief witnessed gets lighter.

Nobody tells you that meal trains run out after about two weeks, right around the time the real work of grieving begins. So when I saw Rebecca's post, "A New Era of Grieve Leave is Coming," I recognized it immediately. I wanted to help build the kind of support I needed, and was fortunate enough to find.

That's what I'm stepping into now.

As Founding Executive Director, my work is to build the structure underneath what Rebecca has already made. I'll be working to complete our transition to a 501(c)(3) and to seat our first board of directors. I'll be protecting and growing the things you already know us for: the Sad Hours, the education, and the spaces where people get to be honest about what they're carrying. And I'm excited to grow the work we offer employers who want to do better by their grieving employees than a bereavement policy and a casserole.

It's not traditional to introduce yourself with a list of your losses. I'm doing it anyway, because you can't understand why I'm here without it.

That's the long answer.

If you're grieving, or you're trying to figure out how to support someone who is, I'd love to hear from you. That's the whole reason I took this job. There's more to come, and I hope you'll join us.