Sniff through it.

Last Friday one of my employees was killed in a crash trying to get home. I had two employees die last year from Covid. My workgroup is about a hundred people and to have lost three to death in one calendar year is a bit much. 

For the two previous employees that died, I came into being their leader about midway through the year. So I walked their families through the memorials and services honoring them and held a couple of memorial services as well, the last one being just a month ago as it was the year-anniversary of their deaths. 

But this time I was there in the widow’s house when the death notification had just been made. Before that, I went to the site where the crash happened and it looked like a bomb had gone off. I couldn’t bring myself to walk closer to where he lay. The spot though, was burned on my soul. 

When I walked through his front door I was met by a teenage girl my daughter’s age who was sobbing. ‘Keep it together, Court,’ I thought and I kicked into gear with providing answers to my bosses, trying to awkwardly meet the widow for the first time, and while juggling various questions from various work people. At one point I had my personal cell phone on one ear and my work cell phone on the other while also talking to the head boss of my organization.

It was a long weekend, followed by a long week. And on top of all of that my organization has had an unprecedented staffing turnover and one of the guys who just retired plans our funeral services. So next thing I knew, two days after the employee had died,  I found myself at the funeral home with his precious family as they started the plans for the service.

Now, his coworkers had heard him talk about his daughter’s soccer games so much that they had asked me the night before to get her game schedule. I brought it up with his widow. Her face brightened immediately, saying her daughter had been nervous about playing soccer for the first time without her dad to watch her. I assured her we would get some of us to the game. 

And then I stressed about it all week. Will anyone come? It’s the weekend after a long week, and not to mention it finally being slightly cooler here in Texas and plentiful events planned all around us to partake in. I had a work trip in the middle of the week and by the time I got the specific information for the game it was literally as I was walking out the door to leave town. 

This likely had the affect of me not being able to be all micro-managey about this, and just send the info to my boss and another boss with a note to send to who they thought would want to come. This did not have the affect of me ceasing to worry about this. I wondered what I was expecting, and I kept picturing dozens of us standing there and the girl feeling honored. But what if it was like only four of us? 

What is ‘enough’ to stand in for a father who should be there?

I made it back in town the day before , but it was a crazy busy day and I had time for nothing extra. I had already arranged a speaker for the funeral from my hotel, and was then asked to get talking points for the head boss as well. This flurry of activity was happening just days before the funeral that is next week. 

Some girlfriends of mine have started a coffee date thing and as my mind kept wandering to worrying about no one showing up later for the soccer game, I went to it to try and stop obsessing. Just about every other thought though was still: ‘will anyone come? Will they show up for her?’ Maybe though, deep down, I was asking, ‘will they show up for me?’ 

How I can selfishly turn this into my own grief, well, sigh. I’m not perfect. I got home from the coffee event with plenty of time to spare, but I can’t really explain how I lost a whole hour just sitting on my couch playing my silly dinosaur game on my phone. 

Next thing I knew it was necessary to leave immediately or I would be late. I kept staring at the ‘expected arrival time,’ which coincidently was the same as the game start time. I started arguing with God about how He should just clear the traffic for me so I could get there on time. Then I realized it was silly to have not left with plenty of time to get there, so I turned up the music and sang along. I tried my best to not speed too much. And then it hit me. 

The intersection where my employee’s accident happened is the main intersection in the small town, and sure enough I was driving right by it. I couldn’t help it, my eyes zeroed in on the spot he had lain and what they saw made tears burst forth. Flowers. Piles of them and other stuff, that later I realized were wreaths, flags, signs, and possibly even a stuffed animal of some kind. There was a huge roadside memorial already just a week after. 

I gave myself another ‘get it together’ speech and sucked the tears back into the black hole of my soul. You are the boss, lady, and you can’t be showing up there a hot mess. Not in front of his family or your people. Sniff it back in!

Finally I arrived and as I was pulling in as one of my people was pulling out. He rolled down his window while pointing down the road, ‘hey boss, I think it’s down there, there ‘s no one else here in this parking lot.’ My heart sank. Surely some more will show up? Please?

I whipped my car around and followed him out and as I came to the parking lot I gasped. There were, quite easily, about a hundred people that had showed up for this teenage girl’s soccer game on a Saturday. They came from other organizations, and some were even retired. They came from multiple work groups in our own organization. 

I walked up to the widow and spread my hands out, ‘well, you asked for some people…’ I said with a laugh. She laughed also, tears flowing down. I leaned in and asked her if it was a bit too much, and she shook her head ‘no,’ and gasped out: ‘It is perfect!’ 

The soccer referee had us line up on the midfield and we stretched from end to end, almost covering the entire field. At one point I held up my phone to take a photo of the the group to my right, which was only half, even. 

They announced that we were here for a man who had been involved in the soccer club for years and then the other soccer team lined up to give a single rose to the girl. She walked the full bouquet over to her mother. SNIFF!!!

I went over to say my goodbyes as another event that had been planned for quite a while was taking place and I was an hour away from it. First I stopped to talk to the other daughter, then I met the brother, and then I had to chat with my work group to iron out some last minute details. The whole time though, I kept looking around at the large group of people that still remained and I would smile from ear to ear. We had showed up for her, and in a big, big way. 

On my long drive to the next event the song ‘The Sound of Silence,’ came on and it was right as I was passing by the roadside memorial again and the guttural groans of the ending blasted that I full-on ugly cried for about a minute. I realized, that in all the busyness I had not processed for myself how I felt about all this. Sniff, sniff. 

I think part of why I had placed so much importance on this event, and people coming to it, was that I was trying to control grief. Which, I know it sounds silly. But my job kind of requires that I control the uncontrollable- a fact that my former pastor once pointed out to me. But emotions have a way of only letting themselves be stuffed in and controlled for so long. 

At the end of the day though, we showed up en masse for a young girl to watch her play soccer. It was a good thing and a good day.