Tell Giselle: Living Through Times of Grief

Our weekly advice column from Giselle Massi, a former journalist with The Denver Post.

“I’ve been a long-time follower. I recently lost a mother to cancer and my workplace has made it a difficult time to get bereavement and take the space I need. Any advice for balancing work and sorrow?”

G: I am sorry for your loss, and can relate as my employer years ago created a bizarre squeeze for me when my father died. Even though your process of grief is uniquely different from anyone else’s, there are certain human needs that remain consistent.

The compassion and warmth that others convey to us during any time of bereavement can not only support us in the immediate aftermath of the loss of a loved one, they will also enable us to process our emotional trauma so it does not linger or impale us with extended suffering.

Like you, I lost a parent to cancer. My father died after a long battle with two forms of cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and lung. Anyone who watches a loved one face that diagnosis and the subsequent brutal treatments, sits in a courtside seat at one of life’s most unfair games.

When I reflect upon how I was able to balance the responsibility of my work, while raising a daughter who was still in school and had aspirations of becoming a doctor, it can put me in a state of awe and wonder. At the time, employees at my company were permitted only three days off work for a parent’s death. That’s it. I was in a unique position where only one other person could step in to do my work, but still only be partially filling my shoes. And that person was off on honeymoon when my father died.

The diagnosis of his second form of cancer had come a few months before he died. I had informed my supervisor of this, giving them enough advance notice so they could prevent an untenable clash of his death possibly happening at the precise timing of my co-worker’s wedding. They failed to heed my concerns.

What this meant was, I am not making this up, I was unable to attend his funeral. My father died on a Sunday morning, and I flew back to my home less than 72 hours later, to pound out a magazine edition that had a Friday afternoon deadline. A boatload of the work had not been completed during my all-too brief absence.

I can remember tears welling up as I worked away, more tears of frustration and exhaustion than from grief. I had been so let down by my employer who had put me in this grotesquely inhumane situation. I suspect you are going through some of that too. Many workers have no choice if they do not want to lose their job.

Because I was not independently wealthy at the time, I leaned into my adult responsibility which was to secure my daughter. I steadfastly persevered with the thought that my father would want me to keep the main thing the main thing. And that main thing was our financial security, short- and long-term, and not sadness over him being gone that would jeopardize everything I had earned, including my career, a home, and self-respect.

Considering what would happen if I were to lose my position was a tremendous motivator to just get on with doing my work and not succumbing to sadness. I would rest and process the void left by my father’s absence whenever I could sleep at night and on the weekends.

The other thing that helped me to deal with the loss was knowing that my father was no longer experiencing the agony of his cancers. This is the third stool to balancing work and grief, and it is something that you can surely relate to. We who have walked the path of this terminal disease with our loved one are on a protracted journey of grief. We experience the steady decline, the many “bad” days, and we catch our breath a bit when our loved one has a “less bad day.” So, by the time of the actual death, we’ve been living tiny deaths pretty much every week for months, if not years. The actual death then becomes a delineation mark of the end of all those deaths.

As to how you can balance work and grief, if you have not already gone to human resources and spoken with the top management—including reaching out to the president or owner of the company – to formally request time off, consider any and all of those. You may also get authorization from your medical doctor, documenting your health state. Mourning alone won’t qualify workers for a leave of absence, but a diagnosable condition, such as clinical depression or acute stress disorder or a severe anxiety, will.

And when you come through the other side of this emotional pain, and you will, consider looking to be employed at a company that offers compassion and warmth. They do exist and you deserve such kindness.

Giselle M. Massi is the author of “We are Here for a Purpose: HOW TO FIND YOURS” and the novel “Just Dance the Steps.” Her romantacy “WYNTER’S DREAM” is now available. Giselle was a journalist with The Denver Post for 16 years and writes the newspaper advice column TELL GISELLE. Contact her at www.gisellemassi.com.