Working with colleagues....

I was approached at work today and asked if I could do a Director a favour?  “Of course” I said, “What is it?”  He said “Such and such is having a really tough time because they have been dealing with all the complaints; they were off yesterday because they were so stressed out.  I think there may be issues at home too, would you mind supporting her and taking some of the more difficult queries to give her a break?”

Excuse me?  You want ME to support somebody else because they are having a rough ride?????? (Obviously I didn’t say that out loud just in my head) It’s only been five months!!!

The girl I am “supporting” is actually a lovely girl and she probably doesn’t know I have been asked to do this; she would more than likely be mortified if she knew. 

I don’t expect special treatment although I still finish at three rather than five (this is permanent although work do not know this yet!) but I get on with my work, have taken new responsibilities, have trained new staff of which I did not want to do because I don’t want to discuss my home life at work with people who do not know what has happened to me (this was obviously not considered when I was asked to do this).

I’ll be honest, I find work a distraction, it helps me to be there and be so busy.  I can switch off from my broken life for a few hours, I have some very good friends there but even though I don’t want to be mollycoddled I don’t want people to forget what has happened and I really think that I should have been the last person to be asked to be the “support”!

Part of the problem is that I cannot talk about Hannah at work yet, I cannot tell my colleagues how proud I am of her like I once did nearly everyday.  As soon as I reminisce about something we did or something she said I burst into tears so I don’t talk about her at all, or Phil or the boys for that matter (maybe out of guilt for not talking about Han) thinking about it I only talk about the dogs!!).  I keep my grief to myself which makes me think people have forgotten but they probably haven’t they just don’t know what else to do.