The Best Company to Work For

Jim and I met at work. We had one date that didn't start out as a date, and I told him, "I don't date guys from work (anymore)." He came in the following Monday and gave his notice! He left to work at Coopers and Lybrand, which later became PriceWaterhouseCoopers, +PwC and thus began his career as a consultant. He was really, really good at it. His clients loved him and mostly his bosses 'got him', notably Shirley Bogan and Marc Gallo. He could be, in my observation, arrogant and indignant, but the arrogance came from his drive to do his best, for him, his company and his clients. And he did.  And he had integrity. The thing that would set him off more than any other was someone questioning his integrity. Jim was a good man and a dedicated employee and strove to do right for his company and clients (not always in that order).

At the age of 50, Jim wanted to scale back a bit. His career had him travelling a lot and carried with it inherently a great deal of pressure, which was beginning to take a toll.  One of his colleagues, +Ted Van Huisen had gone to +Slalom Consulting, and he convinced Jim to join their team in 2011.

As much as Jim loved working with Shirley, Marc and the team at C&L all those years ago, I never saw him more content that he was at Slalom.  He was able to take gigs close to home. He was probably one of the oldest employees they had but he was well loved. They respected his experience and wisdom that came with his grey beard and valued his expertise. He loved being able to contribute, do his best, and come home every night. The company treated their employees incredibly well. Every year they hosted a retreat, or Escape, weekend, and I still smile when I use the commemorative wine glass from one of these escapes.

At Escape weekend, Dan and his wife in the background.

When Jim had to go on medical leave, Dan Biaggi (who had been at C&L and was now Jim's manager) and the whole team at Slalom SF, rallied around and supported both of us in every way possible. Becky in HR was just, literally, a godsend.  She walked us through everything we needed to do to ensure benefits and we felt so incredibly supported

At Jim's funeral, his friend and colleague, Ted, gave the eulogy and spoke of Jim's selfless generosity and compassion. He finished with these words: 

So today, I am not here today to say goodbye to Jim, only “see you later.” I will continue to bring him to every tough client meeting that I have, every coaching session, and every long commute. He will always be my comrade, my mentor, and my friend. And some day when I see him on the other side, the first beer is on me.

After Jim died, Becky continued to work with me and help me navigate through some of the process.  I don't think I ever met her but she treated me like a friend.

I still follow Slalom's facebook page and often when people share their "why I work here" stories, I have felt compelled to write in, so I am finally sharing our "why I love Slalom' story.  I hope no one has to experience the end aspects of what we did with the folks at Slalom, but I am so grateful they were there for us. But I am more grateful for the balance they restored to our lives in those last several years of Jim's career. Slalom truly is  one of the best companies to work for, and I don't need Forbes, Fortune or glassdoor to tell me that.

I can live, and I do

Recently, a friend of mine posted lyrics from the Harry Nilsson song, "I can't live if living is without you" and it got me thinking. My first response it, yes, damn it, you can, and you will, even when you don't want to.

There were many days and nights when I wished I could die too, after Jim died.  I never was suicidal, I just did not want to be alive. But I didn't die 

I was, for many months, doing the zombie walk. Getting through the necessities of life but not living. 

Eventually I would surprise myself by smiling or even laughing at something. I was able to find hints, slivers of joy peeking through like sunlight through the edge of a curtain. 

Once I realized I wasn't going to die I had to think about how I wanted to live. My husband Jim lived life to the fullest. He was brave and he was vulnerable. He was strong yet soft. He had dreams and sadly, many those dreams would never be realized because his life was cut short by cancer. I honor Jim by living my life, by striving for my dreams, by showing gratitude and compassion every day. By living in the moment. By finding the joy in life. 

I'm not yet ready to say that I can find the gift in my loss. However I can say my grief and loss have made me stronger,more compassionate and yes, more joyful.

Moments

http://www.goluputtar.com/best/life-quotes/

About 20 years ago this month there was a moment when I sat across from the conference table and was introduced to a new colleague named Jim McConnell. What I didn't realize at the time was that we had actually spoken on the phone about a year before. Back then he was an irate customer and my impression of him then was that he was arrogant and annoying. As we started working together, we realized we had a lot in common. We had both relocated to the East Coast from far away for reasons that were similar. And we forged a friendship out of that common bond. Jim's client base was in New York where I was located . One night a group of us were planning to go to a movie and everybody canceled except for Jim. I really didn't want to go to a movie with just this one guy so I agreed to meet for a drink. I figured we'd grab a drink next-door to my office at Bryant Park and then I would quickly get on my train, making my excuses. Funny how life has other plans. That quick drink after work became dinner, dinner became kind of a date. That moment after work turned into a very special evening. He called on Friday to see if he could drive down from Boston and I met his son Bobby and the three of us connected really quickly. We had a  fun weekend in the beautiful Hudson Valley. But at the end of the weekend, I informed him that I was not interested in dating someone from work. Less than 48 hours later he showed up at the office and gave his two  week notice. Jim said "OK I don't work here anymore we can date," so we did.

Six months later I got an offer to move back to California. It was a great job offer that I couldn't refuse so I didn't. I moved and three months after that Jim announced that his boss agreed to transfer Jim to California. He proposed to me at Christmas. Ten months later we were married on a beautiful day at the beach, surrounded by close family and friends, while dolphins played in the surf. I still can't believe how quickly everything progressed.

Seventeen short years later Jim was diagnosed with cancer. And two years ago  he died. What I never realized then, but do now is that what seemed to be seemingly insignificant moments became huge moments that would change my life forever and indeed define me.

I wouldn't have changed one of those moments to give up the others. I'm blessed to have the moments that created our life together and the memories of our love. I'm also blessed by the friends and family that have stood with me and held me up during these extremely difficult last three years.

I have learned be mindful of each moment. To embrace the joy of now.The little things really do become the big things. And you just never know.

http://quotes.viralcreek.com/moments-take-breath-away/

The Ring Theory and Cats

When Jim was still alive and I was still going to work almost every day, I managed tough days with a little help from a little pill - Xanax. I am an elementary school teacher. I was worried about him when I was at school and worried about my students when I was away. Xanax helped just take the edge off my anxiety. When I mentioned this to a colleague, she said, "Oh don't worry about it. When my cat died I had to take Xanax to get through it."

Now, before I start on that, let me just say, when my pets died, I cried. When my current pet seems to be slowing down and I even think about her dying, I cry. So I am not heartless to the impact we feel when a furry member of our family dies. But did she really just compare my husband's terminal illness with her cat dying? Her cat?

Enter, the Ring Theory of Grief. Early in Jim's treatment my dear friend +Mary Thompson shared with me the Ring Theory of Grief and I have called upon it so many times, I decided I should write about it. Susan Silk, a clinical psychologist, developed this theory after dealing with people during her own battle with breast cancer.

The basic idea is that there are a series of concentric rings. When Jim was alive, he was in the center, smallest circle. The next circle out was me, our son, Bobby and,Jim's siblings. In the next larger ring were our closest friends, my parents and my siblings. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Less intimate friends in the larger rings. When you are done, you have what Silk calls the Kvetching order, I am a bit more crass and call it the bitching order.

Now that Jim is dead, I am at the center of my circle, just as Jim's siblings are at the center of theirs and Bobby is at the center of his. What was not helpful to me was when people in my circles would come to me overwhelmed by grief and telling me how they can't handle Jim being gone. I know this sounds ungrateful, perhaps I should enjoy sharing my grief and hearing how much he was loved. And as time has passed, I have mellowed on this, the rings lines have become more permeable. 

But in the beginning, it really was all about me. I had no space to consider the emotions of others. I remember the clarity I felt about a month after I died when I brought some of Jim/James' ashes home to Iowa where his family all live. It hit me that they were grieving the loss of a brother, and Bobby his father. I have not experienced those losses yet and my heart was suddenly filled with a deep compassion for them at that moment. I am a little embarrassed to admit that it took me a full month to get there. 

But when I learn more about the ring theory, this all makes sense. From Silk and Goldman:

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, "Life is unfair" and "Why me?" That's the one payoff for being in the center ring.
Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings.
When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. Listening is often more helpful than talking. But if you're going to open your mouth, ask yourself if what you are about to say is likely to provide comfort and support. If it isn't, don't say it. Don't, for example, give advice. People who are suffering from trauma don't need advice. They need comfort and support. So say, "I'm sorry" or "This must really be hard for you" or "Can I bring you a pot roast?" Don't say, "You should hear what happened to me" or "Here's what I would do if I were you." And don't say, "This is really bringing me down."

If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that's fine. It's a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.
Comfort IN, dump OUT.

from LA Times How not to say the wrong thing: It's the 'Ring Theory' of kvetching. The first rule is comfort in, dump out April 07, 2013|Susan Silk and Barry Goldman

The authors point out that the theory applies in times of crisis, and as the crisis subsides, it has been my experience that I am more willing to "hold the space" for other people's feelings around Jim's death. But I still get impatient when people try to make sense of my loss by comparing it to theirs. There is no sense to be made.

In her powerful recent memoir The Great Below, Maddy Paxman writes about mourning the death, at age 50, of her husband, the poet Michael Donaghy, and of others' stumbling efforts to help. One well-wisher tried to find common ground by mentioning the death of a cat. What the ex-cat owner didn't grasp is that it's not your job, in such contexts, to try to make things less awful. To use the language of therapy, it's to help "hold the space" in which feeling awful is OK. And if you genuinely feel awful about your cat, and want to talk about it‚ sure. Just perhaps not right this minute. 

from The Guardian 

Death is not the end of love

When I was in my musically formative years, there was a group called Bread and they had a song called Everything I Own. It struck me then and still does now...the longing, the love, the gratitude. According to the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, David Gates wrote the song  after his father's funeral, to honor him.

Today I was listening to reggae music while looking at our honeymoon pictures and the song came on, sung by Ken Boothe.

"I would give everything I own, just to have you back again."

This may seem obvious, but for some reason it took almost two years to hit me. On New Years Day, I had a melt down. I can only now write about it...maybe. For some reason, the beginning of a new year triggered in me the complete and profound understanding that my life will never, ever, be the same.

Life will never be the same. There is no going back. Ever. Never. 

It's not that I was in denial, like Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking.

...I knew I was in no way prepared to accept this news as final: there was a level on which I believed that what had happened remained reversible...I needed to be alone so he could come back.

It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred...

For most of the first year after her husband, John Gregory Dunne, died, Didion thought at some level, he would come back. Unlike her, I never woke up and thought Jim was just "out of town." I knew Jim was dead and would never physically return. However, I do think I was in another form of denial. I'm not really sure my heart grasped that this new reality was forever. Life would never, ever go back to what it was like when I was with Jim.

I know each moment is unique and will never be the same. But there was something oh so comforting in the knowing-ness of our love and life together. 

I would give everything I own, but I can't. 

So I have to find a way to get along with this new normal... Life will never be the same. But I won't always be so consumed by grief. I know this to be true. Life will never be the same, but it can be good, maybe even great, just different. 

A. Powell Davies wrote, "Let us be honest with death. Let us not pretend that it is less than it is. It is separation. It is sorrow. It is grief. But let us neither pretend that death is more than it is. It is not annihilation. As long as memory endures, his influence will be felt. It is not an end to love—humanity’s need for love from each of us is boundless. It is not an end to joy and laughter—nothing would less honor one so vibrant than to make our lives drab in counterfeit respect!"

You sheltered me from harm

Kept me warm, kept me warm

You gave my life to me

Set me free, set me free

The finest years I ever knew

Were all the years I had with you

Is there someone you know

You're loving them so

But taking them all for granted

You may lose them one day

Someone takes them away

And they don't hear the words you long to say

I would give anything I own

Give up my life, my heart, my home

I would give everything I own

Just to have you back again

Just to touch you once again

What, me worry?

I come by my worrying honestly. My mom is a worrier and I am too. But I am working on it. One
of my favorite walking mantras is,

Why worry if there's nothing I can do?

If there's something I can do, why worry?

Worrying...regret over the past or anxiety about the future, only takes us out of the now. And now is all there is.

For most of my life, I'd say almost 50 years, my biggest worry, also a gift from my mother, is 'what would people think?' I'm embarrassed to admit it has been a driving force in many of my (good and bad) decisions. The truth, I know now, is that most people don't notice or care what I do, and even if they do, it doesn't matter, as long as I am true to myself and not intentionally hurting anyone.

Why the switch? I guess I'd have to say it was a gift from grief. When Jim was dying, I really could care less who saw or heard me cry. At one point I was in the hallway outside Jim's hospital room, alone and crouched in a little ball, crying my eyes out. A nurse came up to me and offered the privacy of an empty room. I declined. I wanted to stay close and I was oblivious to how my sobbing might be affecting the other patients in the middle of that darkest night.

That night it was like a switch went off. I really didn't worry about what anyone thought about me. If I wanted to cry, I cried. And I cried a lot. In the middle of the shampoo aisle, in restaurants, in the faculty room. Who was going to judge me? I was a grieving widow!

Blogger Grant Leishman wrote a great post on the silent killer, Worry. He cites the work of self-help 'guru' Andy Shaw.  Leishman writes:

Why do we worry about what others think? You have to ask yourself a simple question. How can what someone thinks about me help me in reaching my goals and dreams in life?
If you are looking for acceptance from your father, mother, partner, friends, or acquaintances, why are you doing it? Just love yourself; don’t ‘try’ to make others give you what you think you want. They can only give you what you allow them to and they can only take from you that which you allow them; others have no power over you unless you give it to them.
If you love yourself, you don't need to seek acceptance, validation or love from others. You can't control other people's thoughts, so don't try - just be the person you need to be...

It has been extremely liberating to stop worrying so much about well - everything! I worry less about what people think. I make choices that are the best for me in this moment. I worry less about the future. There are no guarantees, so I try to make every moment count.  I don't worry about my health or even death. I try to make healthy choices and when my time comes, it comes. I strive for peace, consciousness, mindfulness, gratitude, grace and bliss, for myself and the world.  Worry changes nothing and only takes me out of now.

And now is all there is.

No Death, No Fear

I finally decided I was ready to read the last chapter of No death, No fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

The chapter is entitled accompanying the dying. When I was reading this book a year ago, I knew I didn't have the strength to tackle that yet. As I now read the words, I cry, but am able to understand and accept the teachings. I was so glad to know that much of what my bother-in-law, Mike and I intuitively knew was aligned with a compassionate death. Mike especially sowed seeds of happiness by recounting stories of the life he shared with Jim. I fell asleep, for the first time in days, with the sounds of Mike telling stories of their adventures. Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "Those who are unconscious have a way to hear us if we are truly present and peaceful as we sit at their bedside." I believe this to be true.

The morning Jim died, I read to him a Buddhist prayer for the dead and dying:

Oh Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,...

Oh Compassionate Ones, you who possess
The wisdom of understanding,
The love of compassion,...
James is passing from this world to the next,
He is taking a great leap,
The light of this world has faded for him,
He has entered solitude with their karmic forces,
He has gone into a vast silence,
He is borne away by the great ocean of birth and death ..…

I also read him the 23rd Psalm from The Bible.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

In No Fear, No Death, I especially like the image of birth and death as a game of hide and seek, take my hand and wave goodbye. Death is not permanent.

My friend, Tanya, a budding Buddhist, writes in her blog,

We exist in the soil, in the light and warmth of the sun, in the animals and in each other. …and this isn’t a flowery story. This is science.
I think science would agree that our bodies are made up of elements that are non-specific to being human. ... Those elements will still be here when our bodies are gone. They will become another form, giving life to something else.
When this form is gone, our bodies will be the rich soil, and water feeding the tree, and the fruit that grows from it. We will be the energy given to the life of an animal eating from it, and to its baby who drinks it’s milk. ...
So, we will never disappear into nothingness. Which also means that we haven’t come from nothing either. We have been the sun, and the minerals, and the soil, and the plants, the insects, and each animal, and person in this way. We have existed, and still do exist as every single thing.
We have lived countless lives in infinite connections. Even in this form, we are new from day to day, and from thought to thought.
And this is rebirth.
For me, I find this much more comforting than the idea of an eternal place where my soul will be stored.

I find comfort in this as well. Tomorrow we shall meet again. I have no fear.