Funeral For A Friend When A Co-Worker Dies, The Loss Can Be Difficult For Friends At The Workplace

Imagine, if you will:

You come to work one morning and, even before you take your first sip of coffee, a guy in your office tells you that one of your mutual coworkers has died.

The news hits you hard. In fact, you seriously consider going home sick.

But, no, there’s work to be done. The Monday report is due, and there’s that group project your boss has been asking about with growing impatience. Going home is impractical, if not downright foolish.

So you gather yourself, avoid looking over in the corner where the deceased once sat, and you try to get on with your day. It’s not easy, but you try.

The news gradually makes its way through the office. Some people gasp and begin to cry. Others just sit in shock. A few, like you, put their heads down and shuffle through the papers spread across their desks.

And then there’s the guy who begins his regular routine of talking on the phone. Talking in a loud voice. Talking in a loud voice that is punctuated here and there by the obvious sound of laughter.

What a jerk, you think. What an insensitive jerk.

And then you, too, begin to cry.

OK, now that you have that scene firmly planted in your mind, ask yourself this: Have you ever actually lived through such an experience?

Lots of people have, you know.

In fact, something similar to that happened at The Spokesman-Review recently when staff illustrator Anne Washington (whose pen name was A. Heitner) succumbed to cancer.

No one acted like a jerk, of course.

But as the word of Washington’s death made the rounds, reactions of S-R staffers ran a gamut every bit as diverse as is described above. Some cried, some sat still and some simply went back to work.

In other words, the staff response resembled what experts on grief and crisis management have come to expect: Namely, that few of us grieve in the same way at the same time.

“One thing that’s really important for people who work together to keep in mind is that everybody deals with grief differently,” says Spokane therapist Davida Leighton. “And if they see one person chattering away, making jokes or not seeming on the outside to be grieving heavily, they need to be careful not to make judgments.”

“Everybody is different,” echoes Vickie Watson, a therapist for Greentree Behavioral Health of Spokane. “The pace that people go through the stages varies, and that’s OK.” What’s important, she says, is “not to expect everybody to go through at the same pace that you’re at, and to be sensitive and respectful of other people and where they’re at.”

Leighton, who works for Vasquez Management Consultants, and Watson both participate in what is known as the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which was set up by employers more than a decade ago initially as a way of dealing with attendance problems and job conflicts caused by alcohol and substance abuse.

It was designed, Leighton says, to help employees keep their jobs by getting them into treatment instead of simply firing them. It has since evolved into an even more inclusive program that deals with such crises as family problems, depression and grief.

Grief, especially grief associated with death, is a tricky issue when it comes to the workplace. Studies conducted by such mental health pioneers as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (“On Death and Dying”) long have identified the typical stages that most humans go through when facing death, either their own or that of a loved one.

Watson uses the following formula:

SHOCK - Some sources refer to this as “denial,” but Watson considers that a judgment. “The theme I use here is, ‘This isn’t real.”’

ANGER - When directed at one’s self, this could take the form of guilt. “The theme here is, ‘This isn’t fair.”’

BARGAINING - “The summary theme here is, ‘Let’s make a deal,’ the old Monty Hall game. ‘If I do these things, then everything will be OK. If only I would have done those things, everything would be OK.”’

EXPERIENCING FEAR AND ANXIETY - “This is where reality is starting to hit,” Watson says, “and a lot of the time the feeling here is, ‘I can’t survive this,’ or ‘I can’t deal with this.’ With a spouse, it’s often, ‘I’m afraid I can’t deal with this alone.”’

SADNESS - “I don’t know how to phrase this except to say that this stage hurts,” Watson says. “This is usually the part that most of us want to avoid with everything in our being … I think it’s important to stress to people that just as the other stages of grieving pass, this one will, too. It isn’t the last stage.”

No, for that belongs to:

ACCEPTANCE - “I usually refer to it more as moving on,” Watson says, “where you still miss the person, there’s still that loss because they’re not a part of your life anymore, but that burden has been lifted so that you can think about them and remember them without a lot of pain and trauma.”

While the grieving process more or less follows this formula, remember that most people grieve according to their own personal time frames. And whatever the pace, grieving the loss of a family member or a close friend is always hard to do.

What may come as a surprise is that grieving the death of a co-worker may be even harder to endure. Leighton says this is because of what she terms a “dual loss.”

“The person is valued as an individual because of their personality and their uniqueness, and they’re valued as a co-worker and a team player,” she says. “So you’re losing somebody you can rely on who isn’t going to be there anymore and that causes uncertainty and loss just in terms of getting the work done.”

What’s worse, often you as the co-worker - who in this work-oriented culture may be as much a part of the deceased person’s everyday life as family and friends - are often shut out of the official rituals of grieving.

“One of the complicating factors is that we may have a sense of closeness with co-workers, but we may not know their families well,” Watson says. “And what happens once the death occurs is there’s a certain amount of distancing in terms of being involved in the rest of the grief process. ‘Should I call the family? Should I not?’ So here you are, like a close family member at work, but you’re out of the loop in terms of the funeral, the arrangements and that sort of thing.”

The result can be a longer process of grief. It’s possible even for coworkers to get stuck in certain stages. Anger, maybe, or sadness. The anger might be aimed at a manager who encourages, however gently, a return to work. It may target a replacement worker, the medical profession or even a God who could let such a thing happen.

The sadness could just be an overwhelming heaviness that feels like the weight of everlasting night.

“The point is, we’re talking about feelings,” Watson says. “And when you’re talking about feelings, you’re not necessarily talking about things that are rational. They’re just things that kick in. They’re not right or wrong, they’re just there. And the key is how you’re going to deal with them.”

There are resources to which you can turn for support. If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, call and set up an appointment. If not, see if your health benefits will pay for individual counseling. If that isn’t an option, call a minister or spiritual adviser. You could even call Hospice of Spokane (456-0438) or Spokane Mental Health (838-4651) and ask if someone would be willing to do a presentation in your workplace.

In an emergency, call the 24-hour crisis hotline, First Call for Help (838-4428).

In terms of self-help, both Watson and Leighton suggest that co-workers invent their own rituals.

“You can create your own memorial service at work,” Leighton says. “Or get a collection together and donate a plaque or service or something in somebody’s memory.”

The simplest alternative, of course, is just to keep talking.

“Encourage people to remember the person,” Leighton says. “Talk about them and don’t just act as if they’re not there. It’s important for people to remember the person and reminisce about who they were.”

Ultimately, Watson says, the pain will pass. And growth likely will take its place.

“Whenever somebody goes through a significant grief process, they’re going to come out the other side as a different person,” she says. “And with that is new strengths, new insights, new appreciations of relationships. That’s one of the positives at the end of the tunnel.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo 12 Staff graphics by A. Heitner

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: A. Heitner Remembered Staff artist Anne Washington (pen name A. Heitner) died of cancer on May 23. Her award-winning artwork included a stunning array of styles, all of them beautiful in their own way. She was incredibly prolific; from hundreds of illustrations, we selected 11 of her best. Please take a look back at a great career cut short by a cruel disease. She was a wonderful artist and a wonderful friend. We miss her.