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One of the people I managed on a remote team suddenly died one night from an aortic aneurysm. He was in his early 40's, had his teen-aged daughter living with him (who fortunately was away visiting her mom). I'd talked to him only hours before. I'd only met him once in-person, just a few weeks before, when he and I and another person I managed had an informal "on-site". I'd learned recently the two of them had been really good friends for many years. The company had never had to handle something like this. Thankfully, HR and execs had the right priorities - concern for his family, respect for him and his family in how the news was shared with co-workers (especially with cause-of-death being unclear at first), concern for how it would affect close co-workers and others in the company, awareness that people would need to process and grieve in their own way. HR talked with the family and got their permission to make an announcement to co-workers, and some guidance on the wording. HR offered to send this, but I felt that would feel too impersonal. I wanted news like that to come across in the most personal way possible, from someone (like me) who knew and cared for him. The amazing response from the company was a big part of the healing. So many people wanted to do something. The family decided to have a private ceremony, and asked that instead of flowers, donations be made to an animal charity his daughter loved. People really felt for his daughter, and wanted to send cards and letters (which the family was happy to support). One of the teams (that hardly knew him) decided to have a commemoration during their weekly meeting. The hardest part of all of this was (a) when his daughter called me to arrange for return of his work equipment and (b) when a family member suggested that one way I could help would be to share some of my experiences with his daughter about working with her dad. I have girls of the same age, so pretty close to home. It was hard to write that letter (#b), but it was also healing for me to think about the many positive ways he'd affected me and our team. A few days later, it felt right to me to have some "closure". I sent a note to the company thanking everyone for the different ways they had respectfully honored our co-worker and supported his family. I also shared some of my memories working with him, and how much I missed his contagious happiness. As sad as it was that he wasn't with us anymore, I wanted to remember how much fun it was to work with him, and that's what I was going to focus on. I hope I won't have to go through that again any time soon, but when I do, I hope it goes this well. |