In my previous life I never had any time off work, I was never off sick and I took my career in Internet Marketing really seriously. Hannah had been gone for only three weeks and I somehow found myself fretting about work which was completely ridiculous.
I am lucky with work because they are very very supportive, I work in a big office with over just under 100 employees however I am part of a small team of four of which I class as all three as good friends as well as colleagues. These friends were at Hannah's funeral along with my boss and I appreciated that a lot because I wasn't expecting them to be there, after all they had never met Hannah although thinking back they knew her well because I was always talking about Han and Ben, all the time.
After three weeks I thought, I need to go back to work. I was dreading it because it is so difficult to face people and to hear condolences and to say thank you etc etc. Nobody knows what to say and I didn't know what to say. I actually found myself making other people feel better about what they said. I stayed for two hours cocooned by my team who really looked after me. I cried all the way home and decided that it was too soon and I was mad to even think I could go back yet. I am glad I went in though because when I finally got back a month later, I had done the difficult bit of facing everyone so most people carried on as if nothing had happened, I was fine with this.
Some bereaved parents are not happy when people carry on as normal at work and I can understand where they are coming from. In my case I keep myself to myself at work, I never spoke to lots of people anyway. My team look after me, they speak about trivial stuff and I join in, it helps me to keep busy. They have asked me about Hannah but I still can't talk about her without crying, happy memories instantly fade into sadness because I realise she will never do any of these things again, talking about Hannah at work will have to wait, it will come. I feel guilty not talking about her at work.
I returned to work after 7 weeks. I didn't want to go back to work and I felt like I was betraying Hannah by doing so but I stuck with it, I mean how can I be doing normal, mundane things when things are not at all normal. My life has been blown to bits. I am phasing in and have been doing 9-12.30 for two weeks. Next week I will do 9-3. I am going to stay on these hours for the foreseeable future so I can collect Ben from school and keep an eye on him.
The first week was hell on earth, the second week has not been as bad. I am not as productive as I was, my mind wonders a lot, I am exhausted, but I would be all these things at home without the distraction work offers. I also have the support of work to be able to go if I need to or hide if I have too. I am getting good at functioning, I don't have any passion for it, I just do it and go home, I drive past the sign that says "baps" that Hannah and I used to laugh at and I laugh and then cry.........
I'm sorry - it is so hard. I think your function starts to return - you begin to be capable to doing stuff - doesn't mean you want too. I think you are doing brilliant to be able to go back and get anything done at all.
ReplyDeleteI went back to work quite quickly after Jude died and although it as really hard at first it did end up distracting me and now it's a lot easier. I'm glad that you've got supportive colleagues. Don't worry about being as productive as you were before and take it easy, you're dealing with so much and like Susan says, it's amazing we can do anything at all!
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