The past week has been unusually stressful at work. A week ago yesterday a friend and colleague at work learned of the death of her youngest son. He was only 30 years old. His death was completely unexpected.
I work in a small retirement center where the staff is very close knit. This young man’s death has hit all of us hard. The nurses, of which I am one, are an even closer knit group than the rest of the staff. It is my observation that this has touched us even more than others. We have all been going through the grieving process. Part of our grief is our own and part of it is for our friend. We hurt for her. We hurt for her family.
We are the ones who normally help others with the grieving process. Now we are in the position of going through it ourselves. We have each experienced the loss of a loved one before in our lives, but this seems to be different. We can only watch and pray at this point since our friend has not returned to work. Of course we are sending cards as a token expression of our sympathy. The staff of our facility is sending a lovely gift in the next few days after everyone has had the chance to donate for it.
At some point there will be a private hand made gift to she and her son’s girlfriend from the nurses on our shift. Work will begin on this gift in the next few days. I cannot bring myself to get the yarn for part of it from my stash just yet. The pattern choice has been made. At the moment it is just a bit too hard to begin this project. It will have to wait until my next day off in the middle of the week.
In the meantime we continue to pray and work through our part of the grief process. I have this sneaking hunch that I am not the only parent who has told a child they are loved more than usual this week.
Thank you for listening.
